Cœur de Loupe
by Lady Jaida
Summary: For James, Sirius, Remus and Peter, both history and the future were far from kind. This is a dark love story of Remus Lupin and Sirius Black, a tale of Voldemort's rise and fall, a novel of the four who were forgotten.
1. Prologue: Cœurdeloupe

**Description** and **Disclaime**r: This is a **story**.** My** story, in fact. I happen to like it a lot, and I've worked very **hard** on it, so I'd like it if **you** liked it, too. :D Most **characters** -- such as **Remus J. Lupin** and **Sirius Black**, as well as **James Potter**, **Lilly Evans**, **Peter Pettrigrew**; even **Professor Voldemort**, **Albus Dumbledore**, **Minerva McGonagall**, etc. -- are **NOT MINE**, and I know this all too well. It makes me sad, but I acknowledge it freely. I am not in **denial**. That is merely a **river** in **Egyp**t. I am a lonely and pathetic fan-girl, and I have decided to share the product of my **loserdom** with the world. Silly, huh? **HOWEVER**, even though these aforementioned **characters** are **not mine**, a few of the **characters** are. **Dalila Lupin**, **Etienne Ibert**, **Michael Black** and some others -- such as **Ellen Abbott** and **Maeve Zabini** -- are of **my own creation**. **I** made them. They are not **yours**, nor are they the wonderful** J.K. Rowling**'s. Also, though the **main characters** of **Remus** and** Sirius** are not **mine**, the **PLOT**, as well as most of the **EVENTS** that occur within this **story**, are also** mine**. I spent a **considerable amount of time** thinking up this **PLOT**, as well as wondering what these **EVENTS** should be, and I spent an **even more considerable amount of time** writing this **PLOT** and these **EVENTS**. Certain events may not be what **J.K. Rowling **had planned for her **characters** and their** pasts**. Well, **who cares**. It's **my show now**. And, if you in any way **steal**, **copy**, **borrow**, or **glean vague inspiration** from that which is in **my show**, I'll have to **castrate **you. If you cannot be sufficiently **castrated** to my liking, an **alternative** and **equally appropriate punishment** will be supplied.  
( Whatever. I'm **PMSing**. For that,** I am sorry**. )  
**Thank you**, and please **enjoy** this **fic**. If you do not _**READ**_ and **_REVIEW_**, I'll sic a **grim** on you.  
**P.S.**: This **fic** contains **flagrant abuse** of my **limited knowledge** of the **French language**. For those of you who have **even more limited knowledge** of the **French language** that has been employed in this **fic**, please see the handy **translations** that are written at **the bottom of the prologue**.  
**P.P.S.**: Have **fun**!

**-jay-**

**Main Characters**: Remus J. Lupin, Sirius Black  
**Subsidiary Characters**: James Potter, Lilly Evans, Peter Pettigrew; Professor Voldemort; Etienne Ibert  
**Couples You Will Find In This Fic (Whether You Like It Or Not)**: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin; James Potter/Lilly Evans; a hint or two of Lucius Malfoy/Severus Snape  
**Dedication**: This fic is dedicated to **Lins**, who continually **rekindles** my joy of **SiriusxRemus** whenever I am **losing** it.   
**This is**: a **work in progress**. Like all my **works in progress**, it is possible that you will be **waiting** a **very long time** between **installments**, or they could come out **daily** in a **psychotic** and rather **frightening** fashion. **Do Not Worry**! Just take it **as it comes**, and feel free to send me **demanding fan mail **if you feel you've been waiting **an egregiously long time**. **Demanding fan mail** is **annoying** sometimes, but on the whole it makes me feel **incredibly cool**. And **that's what it's all about**, right?  
**C&C**: is **demanded**. Or, you know, **desperately longed for**, in a rather **pathetic **sense. Just gimme some of that **good ol' fashioned R&R**, and let me know you actually do want to **see more of my work**.

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** Prologue: C¦urdeloupe  
**  
He sat on the comforting plane of his mother's lap, nestled into the perfect dip caused by the curving of her thighs. Her nightdress was made of the most comforting fabric, white and softer than silk. She did not look so pale against the cloth, her delicate, fragile wrists curving as her fingers slipped smoothly through his hair. The slightly too-long, baby-velvet locks were like gold in the firelight, matching the color of his mother's burnished curls. His eyes, deep brown in any other light, could be seen to have flecks of matching gold and silver inside them, cast into their depths by the flickering flames which curled in the hearth, and by the curve of moon which sliced the enveloping blackness of the sky.

She was singing to him, her voice low and husky and warm. In this light, had her husband paused in the doorway while passing, he would have felt the momentary pang of doubt. His son was not his own. His son bore no resemblance to himself. The same delicate build of his wife's body was echoed on a more minute scale by the boy's frame. They shared the same, very slight, snub-nose; their mouths were both small but full, in the same sensitive laughter-lines. Even the color of their hair was the same, too much of a red brown to be gold in the sun, but glimmering like the most precious of filigreed metals in the firelight.

It was their eyes that would have perturbed him most, had he caught the glint in them. They were the deep brown of the earth in the daylight, warm and comforting, if not a bit precocious. But on these nights that the two shared they seemed to snatch up the moonlight inside their veins, and the silver color that echoed from inside their eyes looked inhuman.

But their moment together was unseen, as if by some force of will the boy's father kept himself away. It is what men do. They close their eyes so that they cannot see what will hurt them most. Instead of peering through the doorway at his wife and his son, trying to catch a glimpse of their unfamiliar forms, ethereal in the firelight, he left his wife to her singing and his son to his wife. From the room that he shared with her, he could hear her voice like sunlight on water and honey on bread:

_Mon c¦ur s'ouvre a ta voix comme s'ouvrent les fleurs  
Aux baisers de l'aurore  
Mais, ô mon bienaimé, pour mieux séchers mes pleurs  
Que ta voix parle encore!  
  
Dis moi qu'a Dalila tu reviens pour jamais,  
Redis a ma tendresse   
Les serments d'autre fois ces serments que j'aimais!_

Ah! réponds a ma tendresse,  
Ver-se-moi, ver-se-moi, l'ivresse!  
Réponds a ma tendresse, réponds a ma tendresse  
Ah! ver-se-moi, ver-se-moi, l'ivresse

Ainsi qu'on voit des blés les épis onduler  
Sous la brise légere,   
Ainsi frémit mon c¦ur, prêt a se consoler,  
A ta voix qui m'est chere!

La fleche est moins rapide a porter le trépas,  
Que ne l'est ton amante a voler dans tes bras!  
A voler dans tes bras!

Ah! réponds a ma tendresse,  
Ver-se-moi, ver-se-moi, l'ivresse!  
Réponds a ma tendresse, réponds a ma tendresse  
Ah! ver-se-moi, ver-se-moi, l'ivresse

Samson! Samson! je t'aime!

The village of C¦urdeloupe was a small woods-length from the town of Lourdes, on the river Garonne. The Lupin family had dwelt there since the very first house had been built, and Dalila Lupin, Dalila Ibert since her marriage to Etienne Ibert, was the last surviving child who could have carried on her family's line. Now that she had married, taking her husband's name in the stead of her own, the name of Lupin had, save for the etchings on gray-slab gravestones, faded away.

Etienne Ibert was no fool. He knew the name had not been forgotten.Whenever he looked upon his son, laughing barefoot on the bank of the Garonne, or silhouetted by the verdant forest that crept stealthily to overrun the corners of his garden, he felt a chill that such a practical, grown man as he should not have felt.

When he first visited C¦urdeloupe there had been rumors about Dalila and her family, rumors closely tied with the name of the village and the pull of the full moon. He had brushed them off easily when he first met Dalila. He was in love. Practicality had not yet set in to defend him from believing such things, but the imprudence of blossoming love had served that purpose for him, instead. They had spent long nights in the forest and she had sung to him, arias, with her lush voice seemingly wrought of the same fire and velvet woven throughout her.

They married three months after they met. Etienne was a businessman, and revelled in the recklessness of their affair and sudden, unexpected marriage. He had not anticipated remaining in Courdeloupe but Dalila had refused to live anywhere else, and so they stayed. It was too easy to forgive her everything, as each day he fell in love with her afresh, and therefore he could let her persuade him her trips to the forest on the nights of the full moon were merely glimpses of her capricious eccentricities. She could convince him of anything with her dancing eyes and her familiar smile.

A year after their marriage, their only son had been born on the night of a full moon during an impossibly cold January. There were no doctors and even Etienne himself did not know what was happening behind the closed doors of his wife's room until he heard the howling cry of a newborn baby through the light walls.

She named the boy Remus without consulting Etienne. 

From the very beginning, Etienne's son was not his own.

"Maman! Maman! Vois-tu que j'ai decouvert?"

"Un moment, Remus! Je fais des autres choses. Parle a papa!"

"Papa!" The boy ran to him, small hands cupped before him, wide brown eyes fixed in delight upon a mound of earth and snail heaped in his palms.

"Je le vois, Remus." Etienne's pale blue eyes flickered down to the muddy fingers, still padded with baby-fat. They would one day be long and slim and graceful, like his wife's. Now, they were one of the only parts of his son's body that did not seem to him eerily familiar. 

"Il est tres petit."

"Oui. Je vois."

"Il est marron, comme la terre." 

"Et comme toi. Joue avec ta maman." From her spot in the garden, Dalila straightened and stood, arms opening wide to her son. Behind his glasses, Etienne felt the pang of ancient jealousy, and turned himself to his book once more, shutting out his son's exclamations and his wife's laughter.

Of all the pleasures in his life, Remus enjoyed most the long walks he and his mother took along the edge of the forest, down to the place where the trees met the water. Past that was the grove where his mother showed him the wind-scoured stones with half-familiar words engraved on them. It was a cold place, where the earth was so dark and so soft. It scared him, sometimes, how his mother would kneel for hours by the somber gray markings, her long fingers tracing the lines of the words.

"Tu es mon Remus?" she would ask.

"Oui, maman."

"Tu es Remus Lupin," she would whisper.

"Loo-panne," he would echo, until he learned it better. "Lupin."

As he grew older she taught him about the gravestones. They weren't just old rocks planted like petrified flowers in the moist dirt that carried names and dates, but memories of people that had lived there by the Garonne in C¦urdeloupe many years before. Remus had never met them and could only listen, breathless, as Dalila wove through his memories the tales of his ancestors with her rich voice. 

His own name was on one of the gravestones, chiselled long ago into the pocked, scarred stone. 

Remus Lupin  
1824-1900  
Les C¦urs des Loupes-Garoux Sont A Toi  
Vois-tu Les Loupes D'une Autre Fois?   
  


"Il n'est pas toi," Dalila explained to her son. "Tu as son nom, c'est vrai, mai il n'est pas toi. Tu es mon Remus."

Remus regarded that gravestone warily. It was one thing to see those unfamiliar names engraved along the rows of rock and quite another to see your own name spoken to you among them. Each time he saw it he got the shivers, goosebumps standing out on his forearms, until his mother came up behind him and wrapped him tight in her arms to take him home.

"Ou vas-tu, maman?" Remus was curled by the fireside, reading a book Etienne had given him for his last birthday for the fourth time. The sun would be setting in a few hours on the windy day. Dalila was pulling on an oddly-styled coat in the doorway, settling her hair back over her shoulders. Etienne sat in an armchair reading the evening paper, watching them both over the edge of the newsprint and the edge of his glasses.

"Laisse ta maman seule," he murmured to the boy, sounding at the most half interested.

"Je veux faire une promenade."

"Puis-je aller avec toi?" Remus shut his book, wanting to run to his mother and bury his face in the cotton of her coat or the soft silk of her skirt. Something glittered in Dalila's eyes and Etienne's fingers tightened on the newspaper.

"Laisse ta maman seule," Etienne repeated, voice warning. "Vois-tu la lune?" That wild look in his mother's eyes faded, and her lips curved into an understanding smile.

"Bientôt, mon petit Remus," she murmured soothingly, before she slipped out. Moments later Etienne stood and locked the door behind her, and slid into place a familiar silver bolt.

"C'est l'heure d'aller au lit, Remus."

"Oui, papa." The shutters were drawn, and the boy could not see his mother leave, golden in the dusk outside the windows.

Late into the night, as Remus lay awake in his bed, he heard the sound of a solitary wolf howling throughout the vast, dark forest, and he felt small and frightened and alone.

"Bon anniversaire, Remus."

Etienne's boy was nine years old, or would be, once the sun set and the full moon rose high in the air. He held out to him a box of books wrapped in plain paper. Remus loved to read -- it was the one aspect of the boy he could understand.

Like any normal child, Remus tore into the wrapping with a gasp of delight and the look on his face as he revealed the thick books was pleased enough to touch a spot deep inside Etienne's chest. He was not entirely like his mother, Remus Ibert, Remus Lupin. 

"Aime-tu les mots, Remus?" he asked him, carefully guarded from behind his spectacles.

"Oui! J'aime les mots, papa!"

"Mais tu aimes aussi les arbres, n'est-ce pas, Remus?" Dalila came up behind the boy, kneeling down to wind her arms around him, from the back.

"Oui. J'aime aussi les arbres," he complied, hugging the books to his chest as his mother hugged him.

"Les mots sont pour les hommes," Etienne said, softly, but there was a gravelly steel quality of his voice that made both the boy and the woman lift their eyes to him. In Dalila's face he saw a twist of animal anger. Had he known her secrets when he first met her he would not have sought to plumb them, and he would not have fallen in love with her.

"Et les arbres sont pour les loupes," Dalila murmured, loud enough for her husband to hear, but meant for her child's ears alone.

"J'aime les deux," Remus said, wriggling free of Dalila's embrace. "J'adore les deux! Merci, papa." The sound of his footsteps faded away on the wood floor, leaving Etienne to watch his wife.

"Il aime les deux, Dalila."

"Il n'y a pas de choix."

"J'interdis."

"Mon homme." Dalila unfolded herself from the floor, wisps of hair tugging free of her loose bun. "Tu ne comprends pas la nuit!" Etienne watched in stony silence as his wife left the room to follow the boy. He did not understand her. In most ways, he did not understand his son, either. But he knew there was a chance for the boy. He would not let the moon or his wife claim him. _Il n'y a pas de choix._ There had not been a choice for Dalila, but he would provide his son with what his wife had not been given.

"Ou vas-tu, maman?" Dalila was buttoning up her coat in Remus's bedroom by the boy's window. He liked the way her fingers made the buttons slip so easily into the buttonholes.

"Je veux faire une promenade. Veux-tu aller avec moi, Remus?"

"Oui! Puis-je?"

"Bien sûr. Mets ton manteau." He scurried to do as she said, pulling his jacket down from the hook by the door and slipping himself into it. The book Etienne had given him lay open on his bed. 

"J'aime ce livre, maman! C'est Les Trois--"

"Vite, vite, Remus! La lune et la nuit approchent!" Remus closed his mouth, his fingers fumbling with the zipper before he slipped the two parts together and pulled them up over the zig-zagging metal. "Bien, mon petit Remus."

"Ou allons-nous, maman?" Dalila took her son's smaller hand in her own. The smell of the forest was creeping up to the window. With her free hand she threw open the shutters and breathed in deeply the scent of grass and earth. The quivering knowledge of the small forest creatures was ingrained into her. The way a pair of rabbits lifted their front paws and twitched their noses and tensed with fear as they caught her musk on the air was inebriating.

"A la forêt."

"Mais papa--"

"A la forêt, Remus!" There was something terrible in her eyes. Remus shrank back from the brightness in her face and the grayness of the world outside at dusk. Dalila held her son's hand tight. "Tu iras avec moi!" She took Remus up in her arms and carried him with her as she leapt out the window, landing crouched on the ground below in the middle of Etienne's violets. 

Everything smelled very sharp to his nose. The flowers all around him seemed to reach up and clutch at his body. He did not want to press himself closer against his mother's breast but he was forced to in order to pull farther away from the surge of nature like the rip-tide around them both.

The sun was sinking lower in the sky.

Dalila took off running, her feet slapping the ground with rhythmic, long strides. The spaces between the sounds were abnormally long. In her arms, Remus felt as if he was floating, or riding some great mythical beast up into the sky. The forest drew closer to them, and though he had always thought of it as being comfortably close, now the seconds drew by lethargically, leaving Remus in an agony of anticipation.

He could hear a night owl kuu-whoo, kuu-whoo into the leaves. He could hear his mother's heart beat in that same rhythm. There was no wind but the thick air rushed past his face.

Then, they were in the forest.

It was like being dragged down into the rushing waters of the Garonne. His eyes could barely focus on the colorless foliage rushing past and his nose could not breathe for the smells that filled it suddenly and without warning. This was the forest Etienne hated. This was the forest Remus had never known, secrets hidden in the gravestones at the Lupin burial ground. Something swished by them -- an owl swooping down to catch a woodmouse who hid, terrified, in the leaves. Remus felt the flash of pain and fear as talons dug into the small creature's fur.

He felt naked. He felt alone. He felt terrified.

He had once fallen into the Garonne while playing in a makeshift boat. He had opened his mouth over and over to scream out for help and his lungs had filled with the freezing, choking water. Remus kept his mouth clamped shut, feeling his teeth grind together.  
  
Dalila ran for a long time, her hair torn from its bun and caught on the branches that reached out, clutching at them. At any moment, she could have dropped her son, but she kept her vise-like hold around his small form. Remus did not feel comforted. He felt like the mouse, half-alive for the irrational pounding in his heart, drunk on the sudden acute senses that flooded him. He liked the trees. He liked the trees. He liked the trees. But he did not like the forest at night.

Remus felt the stop before it happened. The muscles throughout Dalila's body tensed to a halt and her bones creaked as she dug her heels into the moist, dark earth. Her chest rose once, twice, three times as she took in great, heaving breaths. She was still after that, her lips smiling inhumanly in the unforgiving dark.

"Nous sommes ici," she whispered, kneeling down to settle her son into the dirt. "Deshabille-toi, Remus." She lifted her hands to the buttons again, undoing them smoothly and slowly. Remus's hands fumbled with his zipper, an upleasant knot inside him. His coat dropped to the wet earth as Dalila pulled her sweater off and moved on to the complicated hooks of her brassiere. "Continue!" His hands shook as his t-shirt fell beside the gravestone of Margritte Lupin. As Dalila stepped out of her skirt Remus kicked off his pants. "Comme ça," his mother said.

He stood on the ground, naked and cold and confused. "Comme ça?" Dalila nodded. "Mais, apres ça--" She shook her head and he closed his mouth, breathing heavily, as if he had been running, and not she. He wanted to ask what they were doing. Not swimming, certainly. Not now. He wanted to ask where his father was. He wanted to ask what it was he felt in his feet, and why it tingled so as it crept up his ankles. He wanted also to ask what that accompanying, unpleasant grinding in his bones was, as if he were a plant in the earth shooting up suddenly to the sky.

_Comme_ _Jack and the Beanstalk_, he thought, half terrified and half curious.

"Maintenent," Dalila murmured, throwing up her hands to the sky, "nous attendons la lune!"

Nothing happened. Remus took in another few choppy breaths and felt that turning and writhing beneath the casing of his skin. The sun spread over the horizon as if, as Etienne had once described it, it melted in order to hang onto that dimming line for as long as possible.

The last lights held on moments more, then dipped out of sight. The world, in one moment, was darkened. The trees lurched. Beneath his feet, the ground shook and shifted. His sight went blurry and his ears felt, rather than heard, the sound of his mother's body changing.

Moments later the wolf body was launched at him, teeth bared. She was a russet-brown beast, wild with the smell of her son and the smell of man in her flared nostrils. He stumbled backwards, clawing at the air for a second before the impact knocked him breathless, and he fell.

He could smell her fur and the dark ground. His mother did not smell the same. She was someone else, something different. In the same way wolves could sense danger, he could sense this. The link between the boy and his mother was strong, running deeper than the roots of the sturdy oak trees by their cottage. What he sensed was too much to comprehend. It surged through him, leaving him dizzy. 

A mere moment later he felt the breath come back to him, only to leave his body once more as those teeth sank into his stomach, ripping at his flesh. He was soft and the wolf had gone for his tender underbelly. It tasted sweet, and it was baby-soft. He lifted his hands to the fur and clung to it, while trying to shove that heavy bulk off his smaller body.

"Mon fils!"

The wolf turned, blood on her muzzle, eyes glinting a terrifying gold. Remus wrapped his arms around himself and took advantage of the distraction to drag himself away. Things hurt inside him in places that had previously not existed. "Papa," he whimpered softly, a dogged whine in his voice.

"Et ma femme." Etienne stood, a shotgun held to his chest. The grip looked familiar to him. He was comfortable with it. The wolf could sense the danger immediately as she smelled the metal and snarled out a challenging, guttural growl. Her hackles had risen. Remus could barely see. His vision had gone red.

"Papa," he begged the dirt. "Papa. Papa. Papa."

Etienne raised the gun, hoisting it against his shoulder. His finger slipped against the trigger, his jaw set in a tensed, fierce line. The wolf curled its black lips, huffing and snorting into the cold air. The wolf was daring the man to do it. The wolf was reckless.

"Pour mon fils," Etienne said. "Pour mon fils."

The shot was loud enough to make the dauntless owls flutter upwards through the leaves like pigeons. Remus took in a breath that sounded painful even to himself. He could feel the wolf's shock, and then came her pain. He could feel the ground ululate in despair as she lifted her muzzle to the sky and howled for the moon to save her. The moon gave no reply, impassive and pregnant amidst the flickering stars.

Finding no solace from the moon, her great body crumpled to the forest floor. There was a surge of sound. Remus's nose began to bleed. Then all went silent. The world was no longer a living creature beneath him. He could no longer hear the rushing of the Garonne as if he were drowning in it. As Etienne moved towards him, Remus could not feel the earth yield beneath his father's human feet, nor could he sense the earthworms burrowing deeper into the safety of the wet dirt to escape those footsteps.

"Remus," his father was saying, "Remus."

"Papa," he whispered back. 

"Remus." Etienne took his son into his arms for the first time without feeling maladroit. He eased Remus's arms away from the great hole in his stomach to inspect it. He had come too late. Perhaps, a few moments before, and his son would have been spared. His son could have been given the choice.

"Je suis--"

"Shh, mon fils. Je suis ici."

"Papa. Papa. Papa." Etienne set his son down again on the cold ground. He picked up his gun from where he had dropped it and tucked it under one arm, then returned to Remus's side. The boy was whimpering incoherently now, as if he'd forgotten all words, or as if words were not expressive enough to convey his misery. Etienne was silent as he held the gun with one arm and his son with the other. Remus had always been a small boy. It seemed as if he barely weighed anything.   
  
"Nous allons quitter la forêt, Remus," he said, placing one foot in front of the other. They were leaving the body of the wolf behind, wolf-blood spattering the ground and the gravestone of Remus Lupin. They were leaving the forest behind, the pulsing thrum of the most curious rabbits ringing in Remus's ears. Soon, they would creep up to warily inspect the body of the dead wolf. Then, they would leave that form to rot against the earth, Dalila Lupin forgotten. "C'etait un cauchemar. C'etait un cauchemar."

"J'aime les mots," Remus clung to his father's shirt with small fingers. "Je n'aime pas la forêt. Je n'aime pas les arbres."

"Ce n'est pas important."

"J'aime les mots," Remus insisted, voice pleading. "J'aime les mots. J'aime les mots comme les hommes, je n'aime pas les arbres comme les loupes, j'aime les mots - comme les hommes -- comme toi!"

Etienne's son went limp a moment later. The man held the boy to his chest and passed through the darkened, unfamiliar and unforgiving forest, towards the light he had left burning in the window to guide them both home. "Pardonne-moi," he said, to comfort himself and not his son. "Pardonne-moi, mon fils. Je suis trop tard pour toi. Trop tard. Trop tard."

  
  
They were leaving Courdeloupe. They were leaving Lourdes. They were leaving France. Etienne had promised Remus a train ride cross-country, and a trip on a boat which would traverse the channel, after that. Once, his son's eyes would have lit up with whimsical delight at the prospect. Now, they were dulled, like unpolished copper, and registered no excitement, nor any pain. It worried Etienne.

Perhaps, Etienne had thought, leaving the country would do him more good than any words could.  
  
With his son's small hand in his own, they walked down the platform in the crisp, clear air.

Still, he did not know what to make of his son. The boy had been silent when he woke in his bed, cleaned and bandaged. He had been silent as Etienne told him to pack his suitcase. He had been silent as they drove to Lourdes in the car and he had watched on impassively as Etienne sold the vehicle to a dealer who gave him only half what it was worth. As they bought the train tickets, Remus was still silent, staring straight ahead as if he could see through the most solid objects. It rendered everything around the boy transparent. The look in his eyes was unsettling.

He looked like the refugee of a great war, clutching his suitcase to his body, clinging to his father's hand.

It would be all right, soon. The train was due in ten minutes. Etienne let the boy sit on his larger suitcase and kept a hand on his shoulder to steady him. 

"Nous irons a l'Angleterre," Etienne told his son. "Nous allons voir la mer."

Etienne bought a two bedroom apartment in Canterbury with the remainder of the car money. For the first few nights, he and Remus slept together on the sagging mattress and the unsteady metal bed-frame that came with the apartment, until Etienne pawned his wedding ring with no intention of buying it back. He bought them a better mattress and enough food to last them both a week with the money he got for the ring.

Two days after that, he got a job as an accountant at a small bank a few blocks from the apartment. He had once co-run a bank in Provence, until he'd met Dalila in Courdeloupe. He was more than qualified for the job.

Remus stayed at home during the day, while Etienne worked. When Etienne returned home they got carry-out from a fish and chips store down the street, and they ate their dinner over a French-to-English dictionary Etienne had bought at a bookstore by the train station.

A month passed since Remus's birthday. The moon waxed in the sky. Remus watched its growth with a fascinated sort of dread. Some part of him understood instinctively what it meant. Other parts of him just _knew_ by the pull of that somber white shape in the sky. Etienne watched his son watch the moon, and bought a dog cage in time for the first night of the full moon.

"Papa," Remus said, "C'est étrange--"

"In English, Remus."

"It is strange," Remus corrected himself. "I feel strange."

The cage felt safe to him as he crawled into it. The bars were planted firmly between him and the rest of the world. It was comforting to know both that he could be kept in, and the world could be kept out. Etienne sat on the floor of the room by the cage as the sun set, and wept silently as his son's bones melted and reformed to the sound of first his screams and then his howls.

The wolf was small, just a pup. He threw himself against the bars and snarled for freedom. He was not a beast meant for a cage. The forest was where he belonged, and even across the ocean, he could still feel the song of Courdeloupe calling to him. He whined and snarled and growled and whined again, desperate to be set free. Etienne turned his eyes away. The wolf-pup began to throw himself against the bars once more, and then to tear at his own flesh with teeth and claws in a frenzy of despair.

The first night was the longest one. In the morning, Etienne took his unconscious son out of the cage to clean and bandage the cuts that marred his body, then put him to bed and readied himself for work. Remus slept the day through, completed exhausted.

The next full moon came and went in much the same way as the first. The next was just like the other two. The next, no better. Remus adapted to it, resigned himself to the full moon that ruled him and tortured him so. Etienne and his son grew not close but contiguous, like two trees planted side by side, not conversing and not acknowledging each other, but with roots so intertwined that killing one would be like killing the other.

Two years passed in this way. As the change from boy to wolf to boy came and came again, Remus grew thin and stayed small, his bones confused by the strains put upon them. Where Dalila had been bright and vibrant, like a spirit of the woods, the flame inside the boy dimmed lower and lower until finally it flickered out. Dalila and the woods were put behind them, but not forgotten. Sometimes, just before or just after the full moon, Etienne could hear his son humming softly to himself from his room, book forgotten and half open on the bed beside him. If he strained hard enough, he could make out the familiar words hushed on his son's lips:

_Printemps qui commence, portant l'espérance  
Aux c¦urs amoureux  
Ton souffle qui passe de la terre efface  
Les jours malheureux_

Tout brûle en notre âme, et ta douce flam  
Un vient sécher nos pleurs  
Tu rends a la terre, par un doux mystere  
Les fruits et les fleurs

En vain je suis belle!   
Mon c¦ur plein d'amour,   
Pleurant l'infidele  
Attend son retour!

Vivant d'espérance  
Mon c¦ur désolé  
Garde souvenance  
Du bonheur passé!

A la nuit tombante j'irai, triste amante  
M'asseoir au torent, l'attendre pleurant!  
Chassant ma tristesse, s'il revient un jour,  
A lui ma tendresse et la douce ivresse   
Qu'un brulant amour

Garde a son retour.  
Chassant ma tristesse,  
S'il revient un jour  
A lui ma tendresse

A lui ma tendresse et la douce ivresse  
Qu'un brulant amour  
Garde a son retour!  
_~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
_**Translations:  
**  
Mama! Mama! Have you seen what I found?  
One moment, Remus! I'm doing other things. Talk to your father!  
Papa!  
I see him, Remus.   
He's very little.  
Yes. I see.  
He's brown, like the earth.  
Like you. Play with your mother.  
  


Are you my Remus?  
Yes, mama.  
You are Remus Lupin.

"The hearts of the werewolves are yours  
Do you see the wolves of another time?"  
He is not you. You have his name, it's true, but he is not you. You are my Remus.

Where are you going, mama?  
Leave your mother alone.  
I want to take a walk.  
Can I go with you?  
Leave your mother alone. Do you see the moon?  
Soon, my little Remus.  
It's time for bed, Remus.  
Yes, papa.

Happy birthday, Remus.  
Do you like words, Remus?  
Yes! I love words, papa.  
But you also like the trees, isn't that so, Remus?  
Yes. I also love the trees.  
Words are for men.  
And the trees are for the wolves!  
I love them both. I love them both! Thank you, papa.  
He loves them both, Dalila.  
There isn't a choice.  
I forbid it.   
My man. You don't understand the night!

  
  
Where are you going, mama?  
I want to take a walk. Do you want to come with me, Remus?  
Yes! Can I?  
Of course. Put on your coat.  
I like this book, mama. It's 'The Three-'  
Hurry, hurry, Remus! The moon and the night approach. Good, my little Remus.  
Where are we going, mama?  
To the forest.  
But papa--  
To the forest, Remus! You will go with me!  
We are here. Get undressed, Remus. Continue. Like that.  
_Like Jack and the Beanstalk_.  
Now, we wait for the moon!  
My son!  
And my wife.  
For my son. For my son.  
I am--  
Shh, my son. I'm here.  
We are going to leave the forest, Remus. It's a nightmare. It's a nightmare.  
I love words, I don't love the forest. I don't love the trees.  
It's not important.  
I love words. I love words. I love words like men, I don't love the trees like the wolves, I love words -- like men -- like you!  
Forgive me. Forgive me, my son. I'm too late for you. Too late. Too late. 

We're going to England. We're going to see the sea.

  
  
It's strange--  



	2. Chapter One: Comme S'ouvrent Les Fleurs

  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
**Chapter One**:** Comme S'ouvrent Les Fleurs  
What happens**: Remus goes to Diagon Alley and then to Hogwarts, and in doing so meets Sirius Black, James Potter, Lilly Evans, and Lucius Malfoy, too!**  
Main Characters**: Remus J. Lupin, Sirius Black  
**Subsidiary Characters**: James Potter, Lilly Evans, Peter Pettigrew; Professor Voldemort; Etienne Ibert  
**Couples You Will Find In This Fic (Whether You Like It Or Not)**: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin; James Potter/Lilly Evans; a hint or two of Lucius Malfoy/Severus Snape; other relationships of both a homosexual and heterosexual nature  
**Dedication**: This fic is dedicated to **Lins**, who continually **rekindles** my joy of **SiriusxRemus** whenever I am **losing** it.   
**This is**: **chapter two** of a **work in progress**. Like all my **works in progress**, it is possible that you will be **waiting** a **very long time** between **installments**, or they could come out **daily** in a **psychotic** and rather **frightening** fashion. **Do Not Worry**! Just take it **as it comes**, and feel free to send me **demanding fan mail **(all **demanding fan mail** should be sent to **IremusJLupin@aol.com**) if you feel you've been waiting **an egregiously long time**. **Demanding fan mail** is **annoying** sometimes, but on the whole it makes me feel **incredibly cool**. And **that's what it's all about**, right? **Oh yes**. And I am also **constantly updating** **chapters** that have already been **uploaded**, whenever I find a **hideous spelling error** or a **problem with grammar**. So check back **often**.  
**C&C**: is **demanded**. Or, you know, **desperately longed for**, in a rather **pathetic **sense. Just gimme some of that **good ol' fashioned R&R**, and let me know you actually do want to **see more of my work**.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
** Chapter One: Comme S'ouvrent Les Fleurs  
**  
The office Etienne sat in was messy in the way a house is when one family is moving hurriedly out and another is moving hurriedly in. He felt uncomfortable and out of place. This was not the sort of neat, tidy office he was called into on occasion by the bank manager to be congratulated for a job well done. All the things that should have been familiar were not. Stacks of paper sorted themselves, collating of their own free will on the ancient mahogany desk. The paperweights did not attempt to hold these files down; rather, they seemed to have faces and minds of their own, shuffling lazily over the surface of the desk occasionally to newly formed sunspots. There were the usual picture-frames displayed, portraying the smiling faces of the office-holder's family, but even they were not familiar. On the occasion, if he caught a glimpse of such a picture, the people in it would lift their hands and begin to wave vigorously at him, until he coughed awkwardly and looked away.

Finally, he settled on staring at his shoes, which he had just had polished at a shoe-shine station that morning. _They_ were comfortingly familiar objects, the only sane bit in this whole situation. He clung to the sight like a man drowning at a circus.

He was beginning to wish he hadn't come.

The man seated behind the very odd desk was searching through a stack of errant papers, the job made harder as the sheets kept re-ordering themselves whenever the man disrupted them. He was muttering vexedly to himself, words that sounded, at the least, exceedingly unprofessional.

"Aha!" At last he managed to grasp a manila folder from the pile and waved it triumphantly in the air above him before he slapped it down on the desk by a little plaque that stated in sprawling script 'Albus Dumbledore.' "There we are. _Remus Jean Lupin_. Lycanthrope. Aged eleven."

"Mh," coughed Etienne, nodding, his eyes focused desperately on his feet. "Yes, Mr. Dumbledore."

"I take it," Albus Dumbledore murmured, blue eyes twinkling from beneath slightly shaggy brown eyebrows, "your son has inherited his wizard-blood from his mother's side of the family?"

"Yes. You assume-- correctly, sir."

"Please, please, this is my second day on the job. _Sir_ is a bit much."

"Ah. I am sorry."

"Quite all right, quite all right. Now," he went on, distractedly, riffling through the papers, which had finally given up the skirmish by falling still in a state of apparent exhaustion. "Your son is a very bright boy, I assume?"

"Yes. Yes, very bright."

"All parents say that."

"I--"

"But with you, I can see it is true," Dumbledore plowed on. "Next question: has your son ever received any proper schooling?"

"I have taught him in our apartment." Etienne spoke hurriedly now, fast enough to shove a word or two in edgewise. "He has been quick, very eager, to learn. He loves to read--"

"--but he is unused to the company of other children, his age."

"Yes. Back in France, he had one or two friends, when he was very young, but that is all." Etienne licked his lips and toyed with the cuff-link on his freshly pressed dress-shirt. Dumbledore's blue eyes surveyed him inscrutably.

"I think you have done well," the older man said finally, "in keeping him away from his peers. For the time being, of course. But-- you see-- at Hogwarts--"

"It is a good school, I hear," Etienne murmured wretchedly.

"My good man, it is the _best_ school. And I do believe that your son, Remus, would do well to start his schooling in a place where, well, how does one put it so it is not too alarming: ...anything can happen. Do you understand?" The paperweight took that moment as an excuse to unfurl a long, swift tongue and slurp up a fly that had been buzzing lazily around the office. Dumbledore's eyes sparkled, his hands folding neatly over the desk before him.

"The best school, you say?"

"_The_ best, without a doubt."  
  
"It will be hard for him-- he has never been away from home before, he has never--"

"Mr. Ibert, I understand _completely_. The only two people who will know his secret shall be myself and the infirmary nurse, Madam Pomfrey. The other children will never know."

"But he has never, without me--" Dumbledore focused his piercing eyes on Etienne's face, silencing him easily.

"Your son deserves the chance to grow up in this world, despite his unusual predicament. If he is strong enough, and brave enough, and intelligent enough, then he will spend his life thanking you for the chances you have given him." Etienne ran his fingers through his graying hair, bowing his head for a moment in deep thought. Part of him was desperate to be selfish. He would be alone in the house, alone in the world, without his son.

But back in the woods, when he had pulled the trigger so determinedly on his wife, without a second thought directed to her life or death, it had all been for Remus, had it not? For his son.

"Mr. Ibert."

"Yes."

"Yes?"

"Tell me-- how much? I will pay it. He will come to your school. He will learn all he needs to for this world." This world, in which Etienne himself had no part. He loved his son, and this would estrange them both. But perhaps, he would do better in this new world. Perhaps, it would be what could bring a smile back to Remus's face.

"You have my gratitude," Dumbledore said, his eyes crinkling sadly in the corners. "But it will be the gratitude of your son for which you are doing this."

"Yes," Etienne said. "Yes. Tell me what I must do."

In the two years since he and his father had arrived in the port at London, Remus had not once been around so many people. He clung, dwarfed in the crowd, to his father's hand as they moved through the throng of loud men and women. He felt like a three year old lost in a toy store: a place he'd been desperate to see suddenly turned into in an unfamiliar world of fear and people very much bigger than himself. 

"This is Diagon Alley," Etienne had bent down to murmur into his son's ear. 

"Mm," Remus nodded, wide-eyed and all but silent.

Their first stop had been the underground tunnels of Gringott's bank, where Etienne exchanged a significant amount of his 'muggle' money for a sack of foreign looking gold, silver and bronze coins. 

They went next to a store named 'Flourish and Blotts,' where Etienne scrambled through a long list on parchment paper to acquire for his son books with such strange titles as _A History of Magic_ by Bathilda Bagshot and _A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration _by Emeric Switch. Afterwards they moved on to buy Remus a hand-me-down robe at a shop run by a Madam Greymalkin (who, coincidentally, was later forced to change her name to simply 'Malkin' over some muggle copyright infringement).

Under a sign that printed boldly "Cauldrons: All Sizes" Etienne added a pewter cauldron and scales for weighing soon-to-be-bought 'ingredients' to their purchases. They moved on to The Apothecary next, where Remus's sensitive nose was flooded with mildly unpleasant and completely unfamiliar smells.

"For-- making potions," Etienne explained softly as Remus held that oddly scented merchandise to his chest, carefully, as certain bottles were quite fragile.

Their last stop was a place called 'Ollivander's,' where, Etienne revealed, they were going to buy Remus a wand.

"Mr. Dumbledore says it's important," the man said, keeping his voice quiet beneath his salt-and-pepper mustache.

"Ah," a wiry man said, appearing suddenly behind the shop counter. "Who do we have here?" He had perceptive eyes. Remus shrank back, hiding behind his father's taller, comforting form.

"Come now, Remus," Etienne coughed, giving his hand a squeeze.

"Yes, yes, that's right, Remus." From behind sparkling round spectacles, perched precariously on the shop owner's hooked nose, there was a glimmer of sadness and understanding. "Let me have a good look at you."

He paused for a moment, hesitating. Etienne coughed again, and Remus stepped out from behind him, lifting his chin but keeping his eyes fixed on the ground. The man behind the counter -- Mr. Ollivander -- thought he looked like a dog, trying very hard to prove his submission.

"Much better," Mr. Ollivander murmured encouragingly. "Now, now, let's see -- Remus Lupin, it was? -- very interesting, very interesting...yes, yes, I do believe I might--" His eyes lit up again, flashing excitedly. "You know! You know! That might be the very thing!" He clapped his hands together suddenly, then disappeared into the rear of his shop. There was the sound of things crashing to the floor, and a cloud of dust billowed out of the back room. Etienne held his son's hand tighter at the sounds, almost colorless eyes meeting Remus's in disbelief and uncertain worry. "Just a moment-- be with you in an instant -- if I can just -- aha!" Another crash followed the exclamation, and a more battered version of Mr. Ollivander stumbled out into view. He held in his wrinkled yet graceful hands a slim box made of ebony wood. "This! The very thing -- what luck you've come to me, Remus! What fantastic luck!"

"What is this very thing?" Etienne questioned, voicing both his and his son's confusion.

"What? You mean you've never-- but no, of course not!" The man looked vaguely sheepish, and he hurriedly opened up the box, holding it down to Remus's eye-level. "There: there it is. Isn't it magnificent?"

Remus peered cautiously into the velvet casing, where a delicate length of dark ebony wood caught the light and glinted. He felt it pull at his fingers. They lifted of what seemed to be their own accord, and he hesitated again, biting his lower lip.

"Can I..."

"Pick it up, boy, pick it up! Try it out, if you want!"

"I don't know what to do with it."

"You'll know." Mr. Ollivander caught Remus's eyes and winked. "You leave the worrying to the wand." Remus's fingers itched for it. It only took one more heartening nod from Mr. Ollivander and a pat on his back from Etienne for Remus to be encouraged sufficiently. His hand shot forward, grasping the slight, smooth wood and raising it high above him. Electricity pulsed through him, gathering in his fingertips. The room rocked, and then faded. 

"Remus!" Etienne cried out. 

"He can't hear you!" Mr. Ollivander shot back, through the thickness in the air. "Just wait!"

Remus shook a little, eyes squeezing shot. The pressure built inside him, then shot suddenly through his fingers and into the wood. The lights in Mr. Ollivander's shop flickered and went out, then lit up after a second of darkness. Remus set the wand down almost reverently in the box.

"Don't put it away, boy! It's yours, now. There should be a spot for it in the sleeve of your robe that will hold it-- there you are."

"But what is it?"  
  
"Eleven-and-a-half-inch ebony wand. The core-- well, I made it on a hunch, you see. The materials were there, and I couldn't help myself. Just-- call it a whim, if you like."

"And what is it, sir? The core?" Etienne blinked down at his son, truly worried now. His boy's eyes had been that bright, fireside gold, burning as Dalila's once had. Immediately, he was wary.

"The core! Ah, of course. Forgive me-- I'm a bit excited, as it is-- the core has never been replicated, and never will be! Let's see, let's see... I don't know if you are familiar with Norse legend but...perhaps you would not believe such myths, so that is of no importance. In any case; the core has one hair from the tail of Fenris the wolf -- I found it in the forest of Iron Trees; the Ogress who guarded the great thing wasn't happy to give it up, but I got it in the end, and lucky for us that I did! Tremendous-- positively fantastic!"

"It was rather strange," Remus murmured, eyes glinting faintly. 

"Well," Mr. Ollivander murmured, shaking his head. "Rather an understatement, I should think." He tugged off his glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose lightly. "Oh my, oh my...I must take a bit of a break, sit down for a while-- go on now, son, or you'll be tired for catching your train tomorrow! Last minute shoppers should always be careful-- oh, my..." The man replaced his glasses on his nose and shooed them out hurriedly, closing the door with a bang behind him. A moment later he'd hung up a "CLOSED FOR LUNCH" sign, bright red, against the glass pane of the front window. 

Etienne shook his head. "Very strange," he whispered.

"Yes," Remus echoed. "Yes, very strange." Etienne's eyes were drawn sharply to his son, studying him once more. He looked changed, pulsing with some inner power Etienne could never hope to comprehend. For a moment, he found Remus almost unrecognizable, holding one stuffed, lumpy bag in one hand and two in the other, his back set in a determined line.

"Well," Etienne said softly, bewildered. "Shall we go home, then?"

"Mm." Remus nodded, shifting his things so he could take his father's hand again. In a moment, the boy had morphed back into Etienne's child and nothing more, no secret strength thrumming in his veins.

Together, they wove their way through the milling witches and wizards and muggles alike. They were better at going through walls, this time, though it was still a process that made Etienne and Remus both feel quite uncomfortable.

Remus slept against his father's shoulder on the train ride home, and didn't wake when they came to their station. Etienne carried his son and all they had bought onto a trolley and rode in contemplative silence the long journey home. Now more than ever, the man felt acutely and painfully alone in the world, as if his wife, even dead, had a tight clutch on his son still. Remus would wake the next morning, with that unspoken, hidden strength eager to carry him farther and farther away from his father, and home. Now more than ever Etienne comprehended how much he would miss the boy, and how long the days would grow without him.

They reached the King's Cross station early the next morning. Etienne had qualms about the platform number. On the ticket, stamped plain as day, was what had to be a misprint: Platform 9 3/4. Certainly, he could find someone else heading for Hogwarts who could explain this mistake. After all, Dumbledore _had_ said there was only one train.

"Maybe," Remus had said thoughtfully, after his father had voiced his worry on the trip up to the station, "we're going to have to go through another wall, again." Etienne found that he severely liked the idea, but realized, after all, it was quite possible.

Together, they stood, perplexed, between platforms 9 and 10.

"Cor," said a conspiratorial voice by Remus's ear, "You're a first year, then?" He turned quickly, eyes registering a flicker of surprise. Before him stood a red haired, firm-faced girl, half a head taller than he. She wasn't the type of person who seemed to be daunted by the fractions in _her_ platform numbers.

"Yes," Remus said finally, eyes darting back to his father's face for reassurance.

"Then," the girl stated, with a good degree of over-confidence, "you just say goodbye to your dad, and then follow me." She hoisted her suitcase up afresh and trotted off a few feet to give them both their privacy. 

"Well." Etienne coughed, removing his wire-frame glasses and polishing them on his shirtsleeve.

"Papa." Remus half-smiled at him. It was a diagonal sort of smile, long rusty and unstable with disuse. It was the smile that belonged to a boy whose face muscles had atrophied.

"Remus."

"Merci, papa."

"P--pas de quoi." Etienne waved a hand helplessly, forgetting to instruct his son to use English.  
  
"Mais-- j'ai peur."

"Je sais." The man crouched down on his knees and grasped his son up in a tight embrace, crushing him against his chest. Remus dropped his worn suitcase, which was light although it held all the clothes he owned, and the odd-shaped sack he was carrying, which held everything else, and was therefore considerable heavier. The boy, in turn, wrapped his arms around his father's neck. Etienne's worn hands cradled his son's head, fingers tangled in his hair. "Bon chance, mon fils."

Remus pulled back, biting his lower lip. He steeled himself, and nodded.

"Right," said the girl, who had trotted up eagerly to them. She was quite proud to have found someone who obviously needed her help. "Now, it's really quite simple. All you have to do is go straight at that barrier over there, right between 9 and 10. Sometimes," she added, giving Remus no time to protest, "it helps to get a running start. Stops you from thinking about running into something so 'solid,' after all." She clapped a hand on his shoulder, not noticing when he flinched. "Go on. Give it a whirl, why don't you." All of Remus's logical mind was telling him that if he ran at a barrier as substantial, as concrete as the one this girl was pointing to, he would get away, at best, with bruises on his body -- their sizes would be directly proportional to exactly how hard the rock he'd slammed himself into was. 

"You can't go at it sideways," the girl encouraged, half-impatient. "You have to face it head on."

And then there was the part of Remus's mind that connected directly to his heart. That part of his mind told him he could remember Mr. Ollivander's shop, and the way the wand had felt in his hand, and it really wouldn't be that hard to go through walls or barriers, or anything else supposedly 'solid,' for that matter.

"Look, if you just think of it like--"

Remus hefted his belongings in his arms and clutched them tight to his chest, gritting his teeth and rushing straight towards the barrier. Etienne's jaw dropped as he saw his son disappear right before his disbelieving eyes.

"Cor!" the girl exclaimed, turning to stare at Etienne. "That's better'n I did, my first try!" Not to be outdone, she steeled her broad shoulders and thrust herself forward. A moment later, she too simply disappeared.

Etienne removed his glasses again, wiping them slowly on the hem of his jacket. He coughed once, twice, and settled his spectacles once more on his nose. The barrier was there, firm and real once more.

Squaring his own shoulders, Etienne turned his back on the hidden platform and walked away, hands hanging empty by his sides.

Remus stumbled forwards, shaking his head free of fuzziness as a wolf-pup would shake dirt from its fur. He had to scrabble with his things to keep them from falling as the dizziness surged. As soon as the feeling had started, it passed away, leaving him staring at Platform 9 3/4.

"There you are." The girl's familiar voice puffed from behind him. "You're a natural! Didn't need any help from me."

"Thank you," Remus murmured, ducking his head down. It wasn't from modesty. It was one thing to have a surge of courage to get you through something formidable, but it was quite another to keep that courage with you. He was absolutely terrified.

"Right. Well." Again, she clamped a hand down on his shoulder. Remus felt like disappearing into the ground. "If you need anything else, just search me out. Eugenia Klatch. Fifth year Gryffindor." She grinned and then pounded off, joining a circle of girls in the distance, who gave up a loud whoop as she drew near.

Remus shifted nervously from foot to foot. Snatches of conversations were caught up in his sensitive ears from the throng of students all around him. He couldn't lift his hands to shut out the sounds. He felt as if he was drowning in a world to which he did not belong.

"You."

He shifted uncomfortably, catching the voice, but not its intent.

"_You_."

Remus drew his eyes over the train, subtly brighter and more vivid than the trains at platforms 9 and 10 had been.

"Are you _deaf_?" A hand pressed against his shoulderblade. A moment later it shoved at him, hard. Remus dropped his suitcase but held onto the bag, staggering forward a few steps as his knees threatened to give way. By some impossible force of will, he managed not to fall. "I was talking to _you_." Remus turned, dark eyes fixing on a pale, angled face. Light, almost white blond hair was smoothed back from blue eyes so ice-cold they burned. "Well," the voice said, the lips around it curling into a sneer. "How lovely. Father _was_ right. They _are_ letting any old trash into the school, now."

"I'm not sure I--"

"Ah, so you can hear. And talk, too. Fantastic." The voice was a lazy, cruel drawl. "Let's just get this straight, _boy_, this is an _elite_ school. You probably don't know what that means--"  
  
"I do." Remus straightened, holding the bag firmly against his chest like a lifeline. The words were lost from the other boy's lips for a moment. He trembled slightly, body tensing, eyes opening slightly in disbelief.

"What did you just say?"

"I said, I do."

"You can't be serious."

"I am. I know what it--" The blond boy lifted both his hands, thrusting against Remus's chest, and slammed him back as hard as he could. Remus went down out of surprise. The bag of breakable purchases stayed above him, and he did not hear, to his relief, the sound of any glass cracking.

"I _heard_ what you said!" The form rose above him. Stunned, he could only stare up at it, head reeling, unable to even crawl away. "What kind of stupid, imp- "

Something dark passed before Remus's vision, blocking out that golden figure standing over him. His ears picked up the sound of the blond boy's breath whooshing out his stomach after he caught the sound of flesh and bone impacting with flesh and bone. He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. There was a thud a few seconds later as something -- a body -- hit the ground.

"Oi," a voice said from overhead. Remus swallowed something thick down in his throat and opened his eyes. A concerned face was peering into his own, blocking out the bright sunlight from above. "Are you all right?"

"Nh," Remus grunted, then cleared his throat. "Yes."

"You went down pretty hard. You must've said something _wonderfully_ bad to him."

"I don't understand." The dark form stepped back, deep blue eyes sparkling in his bright, sun-browned face. It was a boy, Remus's age but a full head taller, his body possessed of a wiry, rowdy strength. He ran his fingers through unconventionally long, jet-black hair, shoving it from his twinkling eyes, then offered one hand down to help Remus up.

"Come off it! I just punched his bloody lights out for you, you can tell _me_."

"Really," Remus murmured, taking that offered hand and letting it haul him to his feet. The bigger boy took his bag as he brushed himself off. "I didn't say anything."

"He was picking a fight then. Hn-- guess he got more than he bargained for, didn't he?" The boy laughed softly, eyes roving over the blonde's prostrate shape, letting out the occasional groan in a plea for pity. "Well, my mum always said I'd pick a fight the first chance I had. Guess she was right. Always right, my mum is. 'S the way mums are."

"Yes," Remus stated plainly. "And yes." He held out his arms and took the bag back, then moved back to his abandoned suitcase, sighing softly as he discovered a ripped seam had been torn open at least an inch more.

"The way you went down," the boy persisted, standing fast near his triumph, "was positively professional."

"I didn't want to break anything," Remus said.

"Positively professional," the boy repeated. "Fan_tastic_."

"Thank you." Remus paused. "I think." The boy laughed again, and Remus turned his face away to hide that weakened half-smile. It was inadequate in the light that radiated from this other boy's face.

"Oi," Sirius murmured, misinterpreting Remus's body language. "Don't let it worry you. These things happen, sometimes. You just have to know who your friends are."

"My friends..."

"Exactly." Sirius nodded, looking smug.

"But I don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't know who my friends are." 

Sirius opened his mouth and found he was speechless. He closed his mouth, and coughed for half a minute, and then tried again.

"Well, I don't know what _that_ means."

"I don't have friends."

"...oh." Unabashed, Sirius plowed on. "Well, you do now! I'll have you know that, having just punched that boy in the face to defend you, the Rules state quite clearly that _I_ happen to be your friend."

"What ru--"

"You," that high voice interrupted them suddenly, outraged and half whining, "the both of you-- you've made the wrong enemy today! Lucius Malfoy does _not_ forget--"

"Yes, yes, _yes_." The boy rolled his eyes, snorting softly. "To save you the trouble, my name's Sirius Black. Sirius-- S-I-R-I-U-S. Black you can handle on your own, I should think, unless you'd like help with that one, too...?" The blond -- named Lucius -- scowled darkly, but Remus could only find the look oddly comical.

"You haven't seen the end of this," he snarled, before he turned and swept into the crowd.

"Not only a fight, but an _enemy_," Sirius murmured. "_Wow._"

"It's nice to meet you," Remus said, interrupting his reverie, "Sirius Black."

"Right. Bloody hell-- where are my manners? I'm Sirius, and you're..." He hesitated, freeing a hand to hold it out.

"Remus," Remus supplied, remembering to change the pronunciation as his father did to make it sound less French. For the second time that day he took Sirius's offered hand, and the other boy shook it vigorously. "Remus Lupin."

"...and you're Remus-- that's a nice name, you know, very unusual, I don't believe I've ever heard it before-- and at any moment now--"

"_Sirius_?" A new voice rang out across the platform, and a moment later another boy was shooting towards Sirius with a cry of indignant glee. Sirius dropped his things thoughtlessly to the platform ground as he and the new boy launched themselves at each other._ Like dogs at play_, Remus thought. "You bloody stupid-- how dare you, getting into your first fight, without me--"

"I couldn't help it-- come off it, James-- the opportunity presented itself and I--"

"Taking all the glory for yourself, how like you!-- leaving me behind, as usual -"

"Oh, c'mon, James-- this is it! Bloody thought you weren't going to make it! Late, like always--"

"You _know_ how it _is_," James groaned, pulling back and rolling his eyes. "But I made it on time." He wrinkled up his nose, his voice going nasal, somewhat like Lucius's. "Fashionably late, as they say."  
  
"Right, right." Sirius snorted. "But you missed all the bloody _fun_."

"Thought that was _your_ fault, starting all the fun _without_ me."

"Actually," Sirius said slyly, checking his things for damage, "I didn't start the fun." He jerked a thumb back in Remus's direction. "He did. Though it seems like he didn't exactly mean to start it, but hey, these things happen." Satisfied that he'd broken nothing in his carelessness, he slung his bag over his shoulder. "James, this is Remus. Remus, this is, unfortunately, James."

"C'mon!" James's eyes flashed without any anger at all. "What's all this 'unfortunately' business, anyway?"

"Never mind, never mind! Where are your manners, son?" They burst into laughter that didn't end for a few moments. Finally, rubbing at the corner of his eye, James bowed low before Remus's eyes, hiding his laughter behind one hand.  
  
"Chaaarmed, I'm suuure," he drawled thickly. Sirius choked on fresh laughter as Remus merely blinked, head tilted just slightly to the side. He had never been around people like this before. He had no idea what to do, and certainly, he was at a loss for words.

"I...pleased to meet you," he managed, taking a step backwards.

"Come off it, James. You're new around here, aren't you, Remus?" Remus nodded. "Don't let him frighten you away, then. He's just all bark and no bite, like they say."

"Mm." Remus ducked his head down, scuffing his heel against the ground. Silence passed amongst the three of them. James lifted warm hazel eyes to Sirius, flashing him a questioning glance. Sirius shrugged, shaking his head. Whatever was wrong with this Remus was a mystery to him. James caught the little flash in Sirius's eyes that meant determination and some sort of hidden agenda. James opened his mouth to speak but a whistle was blown, cutting him off before any words could pass his lips.

"Right," Sirius said. "Come on, or we'll miss the bloody train, and then where will the three of us be?"

"Well, for starters," James grinned, "not on the 'bloody train'." Sirius tousled James's hair, rolling his eyes slightly. 

"Right," he grumbled. "Let's go." Remus hung back. He knew well enough by instinct that he was not a part of this. He wanted to be, oh yes, but he _wasn't_, and for the life of him he didn't know where to start so that he could be. His fingers tightened on the handle of his suitcase and he straightened up a little, trying to call on the courage he had. It was there, only buried very deep inside him. James paused, looking back over his shoulder at the smaller boy, then nudged Sirius in his side with his elbow. "Right," Sirius repeated, only softer, and then, loud enough for Remus to hear: "You're coming, aren't you, Remus?"

"Mh?" Remus lifted his head, looking painfully hopeful. Sirius -- who had never been one for tact, or for gauging a person's emotions -- was able to catch the smaller boy's almost dogged air, like a mutt slapped in the face one too many times. He softened a little, head inclining to the side, his face growing oddly tender, more so than James had ever seen it.

"Earth to Sirius," James hissed under his breath.

"Er-- right," Sirius mumbled. "What I said was... You're coming, aren't you, Remus? On the train-- with us." There was something different about the question, this time. it wasn't so frightening anymore for Remus just to nod.

"Thank you," he said, voice so soft it could barely be heard.

"There you are, Remus," James said, hurrying to break the peculiar silence that had fallen amongst them. "It's going to be simply _amazing_, Hogwarts is. The best bloody school around." Remus hastened to keep up with the other two, who could cover more distance with their single strides than he could with two.

"Yes," he agreed. He'd never been much good with conversation, no matter how simple. "I've been...told."

"It's what everyone says," James went on, spirits rising, all deeper thoughts forgotten. Sirius was unusually quiet, but that didn't bother him. Sirius had these _moods_, and James knew him well enough to know he'd pop out of it, sooner rather than later. "That's because it's _true_, you see, Hogwarts is where everybody who's anybody goes, and even though there's a new headmaster..." Remus tuned him out after a while, nodding once in a while to keep up the appearance of listening. His mind, however, was focused merely on keeping him afloat amidst all that was going on around him.  
  
Things were happening quite quickly. First, they were on the train and then they'd secured a car for themselves. The train had started unceremoniously soon, leaving the station suddenly behind. After that, in a desperate frenzy, James, and Sirius too (he'd been revived by the smell of chocolates) scrambled to buy themselves the strangest of treats with their pocket money. Remus had none, and instead watched the other two gorge themselves on their candy like a child standing in front of a toy shop on Christmas Eve.

" 'Ere," James said, muffled behind a bag of what _might_ have been jelly beans, "why 'aven' 'oo gotten anyfin', Remuf?"

"I..." He faltered. "I'm not hungry. I ate breakfast...not more than an hour ago."

" 'Eah," James grunted, "but 'at 'as breakfaft." He gulped something down and grimaced. "Bloody-- I think I got all the ones that taste like _foot_."

"Really?" Sirius, who had been silent while eating his, spoke up now, wearing a rather pained expression. "We match, then. I seem to have gotten all the ones that taste like _old sock_." Remus folded and unfolded his hands in his lap, turning to stare out the window once more as the countryside whizzed by.

"That's brilliant," James said, trying to cling to his easy laughter. Suddenly, though, it was a bit hard to laugh.

"Here, Remus," Sirius was attempting, "D'you like chocolate? You have to like _chocolate_. _Everyone_ likes chocolate."

"Yes," Remus said, eyes pulled from the window. "I do."

"Well then, try this." Sirius held out a harmless bar of rich, dark chocolate. He was more than ready when Remus began to object. "No, no, no, I insist. You must have one. On the house! Free of charge. Consider it a--a gift, or something like that."

"Really. I couldn't."

"Then let's just say you owe me one? I'll be expecting a chocolate bar, in the future. Come _on_, I'm not going to shut up until you take it!"

"He's serious, you know," James butted in. "And he's awfully loud too, sometimes, so I wouldn't take such words as an idle threat."

"All right," Remus said. Sirius leaned over the distance between them, dropping the bar of chocolate in Remus's lap.

"Bet you've never had _anything_ like it, before," Sirius promised. Without having his father to turn to for reassurance, Remus hesitated for a few moments longer than usual before he undid the wrapper and broke off a piece. He savored the sweetness in his mouth for as long as he could, eyes closed.

"Bet _you've_ never seen anyone enjoy chocolate like _that_ before," James whispered to his friend, shaking his head.

"No," Sirius agreed, "never." He watchedwith fascination as the smaller boy savoured the chocolate down to the last molecule. James was right. He had never seen anyone enjoy chocolate like that in his life.

With a deep breath, Remus finally opened his eyes, carefully folding down the edges of the silver wrapping around the bar of chocolate. "Thank you," he said, holding the rest out. "Here--"

"Keep it," Sirius said.

"I can't. Take it back--" Sirius shook his head, taking the chocolate and placing it once more in Remus's lap.

"_Keep_ it," Sirius said again. Remus swallowed. The chocolate tasted sweet on his teeth and his tongue.

"All right," Remus said. James nodded, satisfied. He knew Sirius as well as Sirius's own mother did, if not better. His friend never gave up on something. His friend _always_ accomplished what he'd set his mind to.

"Well." James nodded again, folding his arms over his chest and feeling justifiably proud. "That's more like it." Remus ran his fingers over the silver foil and let his mussed bangs hide his eyes, which smiled a secretive gold.

The train rolled down the track smoothly, fields and towns flying namelessly by the windows. For the first hour or so Remus had watched life speed by him with a determined wish to remember every single detail. After a while he tired of it, and curled up against his suitcase with one of the newly bought books opened on his lap. In half an hour, Sirius noted the other boy had gotten through more of that book than he himself had been able to in a week. 

Sirius himself had talked a while with James, recounting with atrocious inaccuracy the details of his heroism. They had planned some things together, even managing to bring Remus into the conversation; though the small boy didn't volunteer more than a word here or there, he did pay attention for a while, soaking up every word. James had caught up on his studies, and had then gone off to locate a certain Lilly Evans, who wasn't really bad, as girls went, but Sirius's nature demanded his slight resentment of her.

After James had been gone for half an hour or so, Sirius started to get bored. When he got bored, he got fidgety. He crossed his legs and uncrossed them again. He stood and stretched, arms above his head. He pondered reading, or getting into his robes, but he wouldn't have been able to concentrate on a book and he didn't want to look desperately impatient. He was, but he didn't want to _look_ it. Part of him was a little nervous at the thought of just where the train was speeding to, but for the sake of his bravado, such emotions would be forcibly repressed inside him.

He sat back down and stretched his legs out before him, hands shoved in his jeans pockets. He fought the almost irresistible urge to sulk, and chose instead to yawn, very loudly.  
  
Surprisingly, the sound brought him the desired result. Remus lifted his head, which had been bowed low over his book, blinking his eyes like a child awakened from a dream. Sirius flashed a weak, sheepish grin and shrugged, eyes flickering away. Sure, he'd gotten the attention he'd wanted so badly. The problem was, he didn't know what to do with it.

Remus went back to his book, but found he couldn't concentrate on it, something nagging at the back of his brain. Finally, he lifted his head a second time, shutting the book quietly and letting it rest in his lap.

"So," Sirius began, coughing softly. "Remus."

"Yes?"

"I..." Sirius felt uncharacteristically tongue-tied in the face of Remus's soft spoken, understated nature. "Uhm."

"Yes...?"

"Where are you from?" It was a frail attempt towards conversation, but it was the best Sirius could produce. He immediately regretted asking, as something fleeting ran over Remus's face, tugging his lips down.

"France." Remus cleared his throat, pushing down the accent. "I'm French."

"Ah. Where-- where in France?"   
  
"It's-- you wouldn't have heard of it."

"Tell me anyway?"

"A village. Called C¦urdeloupe." No recognition was sparkled in Sirius's eyes. Remus tried again. "Twenty miles from Lourdes. On the Garonne." Still nothing. Remus shrugged helplessly.

"Oh." The silence between them lasted for more than a minute, making the air thick. Remus struggled with what he should say next, grasped onto a sentence, and spoke it as quickly and quietly as he could.

"Where do you come from?"

"Wales," Sirius said, so relieved that a grin spread over his face, "I'm Welsh. I come from-- well, you wouldn't have heard of it, either."

"Tell me anyway." They caught each other's eyes. Sirius laughed softly. It was a low and comforting sound, and Remus liked it.

"Rhondda. My father and my two brothers are muggles. They mine there; it's a mining town." Remus swallowed this information thoughtfully, comfortable enough with this conversation to give himself proper time for coming up with something else to say.

"What about," he decided on finally, "your mother?"

"My mum? She just takes care of everybody, that's all."

"Mm."

"What about your mum?"

"She's dead." The only sound between them was sound of the train rolling down the track. Sirius stared, horrified and silenced, at his lap.

"Sorry," he mumbled softly, praying that his seat would grow a mouth and eat him whole.

"Why?"

"Wh-- what do you mean, why? I-- I mean, I'm just-- I didn't know, I wasn't - thinking, I'm..." He lifted his hands in a feebly apologetic gesture.

"It's not your fault."

"I'm still sorry it happened!" The crinkling of foil interrupted the long silence that had been erected like a wall between them after Sirius's expostulation. Remus unwrapped the chocolate on his lap and broke off two pieces, eating one and offering the other to Sirius. He sighed and took it, popping it into his mouth. "Thanks," he said.

"I didn't thank you, before.I don't know what I did to him to make him so angry, but he seemed even angrier at you after you did that. So thank you. For doing that." Remus drew in a deep gulp of air, as if those had been his dying words, and it had taken his last breaths to force so much out his lips. Afterwards, though, he seemed to have more color in his face and more mettle behind his eyes. It was something quite breathtaking to see.

"It's...nothing, really," Sirius scoffed, inspecting his knuckles nonchalantly. To the untrained eye, there was nothing to be seen on his tanned skin. For one actively searching out any contusions, no matter how minute, a few, almost-red inconsistencies might possibly be visible to the naked eye.

"Did it-- did it hurt?" Remus set the book down on the seat beside him and stood, peering cautiously over at Sirius's hand. For a moment, Sirius hid it, and then held his hand out for Remus to inspect it. Remus squinted, and looked from Sirius to his knuckles to Sirius again.

"Didn't hurt. Not _really_, anyway," he explained, grinning nearly from ear to ear. Remus opened his mouth to say 'But there's nothing there!' and closed it almost immediately.

"Looked like," he tried, "it hurt him, anyway."

"You think?"

"Oh, yes."

"He sure stayed down for a while, anyway. Like a little baby." Remus nodded, tempted to keep his eyes on his feet, but lifting them instead to Sirius's face.

"A very long while," Remus agreed, sitting back down in his seat, across from the other boy. The tension between them had been broken. Sirius felt at ease now to do as he liked and say whatever came to him.

"So," he said, stretching his arms above his head. His insouciance was like something directly out of one of Remus's paperback novels. If his name had been 'Charming' rather than 'Sirius' it wouldn't have surprised Remus one bit. "Exciting, isn't it?"

"Well-- no, not really." This seemed to wound Sirius deeply, and Remus wished immediately he hadn't said it.

"You mean you don't think any of this is just _fantastic_?"

"Well you see," Remus explained himself quickly, "I haven't had time to get excited, yet."

"Didn't have time to...?" Sirius was baffled. Immediately, Remus realized he would have to try again.

"You see," he said, going about it from a different angle, "My father only just told me I was coming two days ago, when we went...went shopping. At Diagon Alley."

"Two bloody _days_ ago?"

"My father is what...is what you called a 'muggle.' Apparently...I am not." He shrugged, hoping he wouldn't have to lie. It would be best if he could just get away with neglecting to inform Sirius of things.

"That shouldn't make any difference!" Again, Remus shrugged. "Must be-- really _weird_, then, for you," Sirius attempted, after Remus made it clear he would be speaking no more on his subject. It was harder to draw information from this boy than it would be to draw blood from a stone. "I mean, all of a sudden, you're going to Hogwarts, and you didn't even know about it three days ago, or _anything_..." Remus swallowed down another piece of chocolate and shrugged again.

"Yes," he said finally, "weird." Sirius got the odd feeling that in this context, 'weird' didn't mean just 'weird' but 'lonely' and 'terrifying,' too.

"Sorry," Sirius muttered.

"Don't apologize."

"Yeah. Right. Still..."

"It is _weird_, like you said. Just like that." The chocolate was soothing his insides, which were, to be honest, writhing in a coil of nerves. "I suppose I'll be excited tomorrow, or the day after that. If I get excited at all."

"You know something," Sirius said, shaking his head, "_you're_ weird." Remus got the odd feeling that in this context, 'weird' didn't mean just 'weird' but 'rare' and 'bloody _fantastic_,' too.

"Mh." He looked thoughtfully down at his closed book, silent. As if he was drowning, Sirius cast about for a line to rescue the floundering conversation.

"You like to read?"

"Yes. Very much," he added, remembering something his father had said once about monosyllables being the black thumb of discourse.

"I liked _A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration_ a lot," Sirius said, because of all the books it had been the one he'd been able to read whole chapters of without nodding off.

"I've only just started _Magical Theory_/" Remus demonstrated by holding up the book.

"Didn't understand a _single_ word of _that_," Sirius griped.

"Some of it was hard. I wonder if I could find a copy in F-- no, that wouldn't be a good idea." He bit his lower lip as if holding something back. Sirius leaned forward, scrutinizing his face.

"Why? Sounds like a pretty good idea, to me." His eyes twinkled. "Maybe then, you could tell me what the author's bloody going on about in there."

"It's best in English," Remus said.

"But why--" Remus shook his head, hands wringing in his lap. It was a seemingly harmless motion, but Sirius could tell from the way Remus's shoulders tensed that the boy was inexplicably uncomfortable.  
  
"It's best in English."

"Right." Sirius faltered again, but would not be beaten down. "Did you go to any muggle schools before this one?"

"No."

"Mm. Neither did I, but my mum'n'dad were saving up to get me into Hogwarts. 'S kinda scary, they've been waiting so long for this."

"What about you?"

"Huh?"

"Have you been waiting so long for this?"

"Mm-- yeah, I guess so. I'm just as excited as they are." Sirius let his hands drop to the seat beside him. "But I have to be scared, too, in case I disappoint them or something." It was a stunning revelation to Remus that Sirius should be afraid of anything at all, no matter how terrifying.

"Don't worry about it," he said, without thinking. "You've got nothing to be afraid of."

"What gives you that idea?"

"You weren't afraid of that blond boy, that Lucius."

"That was just a boy."

"Yes, but he seemed much more frightening than that, at the time. And even though you weren't afraid of him in the least, _I_ was. Quite." He hadn't been scared at all, but Remus didn't see the harm in this sort of lie. He had been too shocked to be afraid. In the scheme of things, some blond boy who thought he was terribly important wasn't even something to be considered a disturbance, much less terrifying.

Remus had the priorities of a forty-five year old, but he didn't even realize anything was off about the way he thought.

"Well," Sirius said and, for lack of anything more to say, he said again: "Well." Remus took in a deep breath. It seemed to draw raggedly through his throat, and Sirius would have sworn that he saw Remus's chest expand like a balloon while he spoke, and then shrink, as if the escaping words had deflated him. "That's quite...that's quite something. All you just, uhm, said." 

He got no response, though, for Remus had gone back to his book and seemed for all intents and purposes to be deaf to the rest of the world.

Remus's robe seemed shabby even in comparison to Sirius's own newer hand-me-down, and James's brand-new one put them both to shame. They were all three of them more than ready by the time the five minute warning rang out through the cars. Getting off the train was even harder then getting on. Remus could not cling to his father and was unused to being touched by anyone else; he cringed and pulled back when anyone brushed against him, and had no shield from the crowd of excited, eager children. It wasn't that he felt alone, though he did, and it wasn't that he felt overwhelmed, though he did. It certainly wasn't because he felt afraid, because he didn't. It was simply because he couldn't stand so many bodies, so close. It was simply because he couldn't stand being touched.

"It isn't that bad," Sirius said, because he didn't understand, but his voice was soft and it was nice enough to listen to it without hearing the words.

All the first -years, the three of them included, were led down a steep, narrow path. Sirius didn't stumble himself, but he was half expecting Remus to. Still, there was something in him that wasn't surprised when the smaller boy didn't falter, keeping his footing easier than even James. There was darkness all around them, and Remus could sense there were trees by sniffing the scent on the air only once. He felt trapped, with the trees closing in on him from both sides.

"It isn't that bad," Sirius repeated, knowing somehow that Remus was trying to curl in on himself. Again, he didn't understand, and Remus bit his lip to keep from saying anything. "Look, Hogwarts is probably just around this--"

The blackness of shadow all around them was lifted, and was replaced by the glittering black stretch of a vast lake. It reflected the dark sky and reflected shards of the half moon and the stars as a broken mirror reflects candles lit in a dark room. Sirius fell silent. Before them, across the lake, was a castle that seemed impossible to Remus logical senses, but utterly wonderful all the same. High turrets pierced the impassive, impressive sky and lights from the windows twinkled on and off, as if of their own accord.

They had barely any time to stand and stare at the magnificent sight. They were herded four at a time into shallow-bellied boats and sent off rowing towards the sight. Remus, Sirius, and James snagged one of the first boats, and the fourth rider was a girl who introduced herself as Lilly. She had pale hair and emerald eyes and a slight build, and there was a proper balance of mischief and wisdom in her features. It wasn't hard for Remus's eyes in the darkness to see her smile at him. He took advantage of the poor light and the others' weaker eyesight to smile that crooked smile, and breathed out deeply in relief when it seemed to pass as acceptable. James folded his arms over his chest and glowered but said nothing. Remus didn't understand James's behavior, but he figured it had something to do with how Sirius had kicked him in the shin before he could speak.

The boat ride was beautiful, and compared with all the bodies that had pressed against his before, just brushing shoulders with Sirius wasn't all that bad. He took in silent, deep breaths and kept himself calm as the dark sky disappeared above them and they were swallowed by a gloomy tunnel. Remus found that, despite the splendor of the scenery, he was glad when he was out of the boat, both feet on solid ground once again. A few minutes and one flight of steep steps later, the first -years were pressed against the great oaken door of the school.

Remus drew back as a teacher whose name he had not caught pounded thrice on the wood. The sound rang out hollowly, and even _he_ held his breath. 


	3. Chapter Two: Les Chenilles et Les Papill...

  
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**Chapter Two**:** Les Chenilles et Les Papillons  
What happens**: Remus's first year at Hogwarts. He learns new things and makes new friends. Just read to find out! **  
Main Characters**: Remus J. Lupin, Sirius Black  
**Subsidiary Characters**: James Potter, Lilly Evans, Peter Pettigrew; Professor Voldemort; Etienne Ibert  
**Couples You Will Find In This Fic (Whether You Like It Or Not)**: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin; James Potter/Lilly Evans; a hint or two of Lucius Malfoy/Severus Snape; other relationships of both a homosexual and heterosexual nature  
**Dedication**: This fic is dedicated to **Lins**, who continually **rekindles** my joy of **SiriusxRemus** whenever I am **losing** it.   
**This is**: **chapter two** of a **work in progress**. Like all my **works in progress**, it is possible that you will be **waiting** a **very long time** between **installments**, or they could come out **daily** in a **psychotic** and rather **frightening** fashion. **Do Not Worry**! Just take it **as it comes**, and feel free to send me **demanding fan mail **(all **demanding fan mail** should be sent to **IremusJLupin@aol.com**) if you feel you've been waiting **an egregiously long time**. **Demanding fan mail** is **annoying** sometimes, but on the whole it makes me feel **incredibly cool**. And **that's what it's all about**, right? **Oh yes**. And I am also **constantly updating** **chapters** that have already been **uploaded**, whenever I find a **hideous spelling error** or a **problem with grammar**. So check back **often**.  
**C&C**: is **demanded**. Or, you know, **desperately longed for**, in a rather **pathetic **sense. Just gimme some of that **good ol' fashioned R&R**, and let me know you actually do want to **see more of my work**.  
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Chapter Two: Les Chenilles et Les Papillons

Without a creak and without a moment's pause, the great door swung wide open. Standing in the doorway was a tall, rail-thin man with a shadowed face. For a moment, he seemed menacing enough to cause even Remus to shiver. Then his edges softened, and he stepped backwards, beckoning for the group of first-years to follow.

"Now," he said, upon leading them into a chamber off the hall, "welcome to Hogwarts. I am Professor Voldemort, and I do hope that your stay at Hogwarts will be as pleasant for you as it is honorable. The start-of-term banquet shall begin momentarily, but before you can take your seats in the Great Hall, you must first be sorted into your houses. The four houses are known as Slytherin, Griffyndor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, and your house shall be almost like your family, here at Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house; you shall sleep in your house dormitory; your free time shall be spent in your house common room. No one house is better than another. Each has its own admirable history, and each has produced its fair share of honorable witches and wizards. During your stay at Hogwarts, moments of excellence shall be rewarded not only upon a personal level, but on a house level as well; you will earn house points with individual triumphs. Naturally, if you are found breaking any rules, you shall bring shame not only upon yourself but upon your house as well, and house points shall be lost. At the end of the year, the house with the most points shall be awarded the house cup. I am sure that every one of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours." Professor Voldemort licked his lips and smiled benevolently. He was, Remus decided, like a very friendly snake. "The Sorting Ceremony will begin shortly. You shan't have to wait too long." He turned on his heel and marched out, robes billowing behind him.

"Seems nice enough," Sirius murmured to Remus, whose skin was crawling, as if someone had walked over his future grave.

"Yes," Remus said, "seems."

A few achingly long minutes passed, and at last the Professor returned. "Form a line," he instructed, "and follow me." There was no scramble over who wanted to be first. Finally, the blond boy Remus recognized as Lucius stepped up boldly to the front. Sirius tensed and then shoved his way forward, James right behind him. Remus heard someone next to him sigh with deep but resigned aggravation.

"_Boys_," Lilly Evans scoffed. "Come on. Can't let _them_ have all the glory, now can we?" She grabbed Remus's hand and pulled him forward.

"That's more like it," Professor Voldemort encouraged with a full smile. He might have fooled most people, but Remus's hairs prickled on the back of his neck and he shuddered, goosebumps thankfully hidden beneath his robes. "There we are. Now, follow me. Of all you have to worry about, here at Hogwarts, the Sorting Ceremony is the least important." Professor Voldemort's robes billowed out around his ankles as he led them all out of the small chamber, down a twisting hall, and at last through the double doors, into the Great Hall.

Remus had to shade his eyes from the golden light that flooded the place. He felt half comforted and half exposed. In a throng of people like this he was the sort of person who panicked, but something about the warmth of the room told him he was safe. He wasn't afraid of the Sorting Ceremony because he barely knew what it was. He didn't have to care about what house he was put in, or why. What happened would happen.

What he did mind was feeling as if a thousand eyes were focused on him.

Professor Voldemort solemnly put a stool in front of the first-years, placing a pointed wizard's hat on top of it. The hat was certainly a disappointment. It looked quite the worse for wear.

Remus wanted to ask 'what's that old thing for?' but felt somewhat of a fool for not knowing. There was an anticipatory tension in the air, and silence fell over the Great Hall. It seemed as if everything in the room was drawing to a wonderful climax. The hat twitched, and in an oddly comical moment, a rip just above the brim opened, almost like a mouth. Remus's own mouth nearly fell open as the hat began to sing. He didn't catch all of it, but the part that stuck with him happened close to the beginning of the song:

"_There's nothing hidden in your head  
The Sorting Hat can't see,  
So try me on and I will tell you  
Where you ought to be..."_

It felt as if those lines were meant solely for him. They pierced his chest and made him tremble, shaking him so that he barely heard the rest of the song. What if the Sorting Hat saw what he was? What if it could discover everything?

What if this ended before it began?

Professor Voldemort produced a long strip of parchment paper from his robes. Without having to clear his throat his voice rang out, loud and crystalline. "Ambrose, Eulalia." A girl removed herself from the line and hopped up onto the stool, fitting the Sorting Hat onto her head. Remus paid no attention.  
  
"HUFFLEPUFF!" There was cheering, but it was muted in Remus's senses.

"Abbott, Ellen," Proffessor Voldemort said. A moment later,

"RAVENCLAW!" the Sorting Hat cried out. The cheering, though louder this time, still fell on Remus's half-deaf ears.

"Black, Sirius," Professor Voldemort went on. Remus lifted his eyes, and watched the familiar boy stride confidently over to the stool. He pulled the hat on. A few moments passed, in which Remus found himself caring half-heartedly, at least paying attention.

"GRYFFINDOR!" The cheers that burst forth from the Gryffindor tables suited Sirius's nature perfectly. It was impossible to imagine he wasn't made for such applause, the way he swaggered bravely over to the table, all eyes on him.  
  
The rest of the names between 'Black' and 'Lupin' passed by in a blur of house names and cheers. The only one he took any notice of was "Evans, Lilly" -- she joined Sirius at the Gryffindor table. By the time they reached "Longbottom, Frank," Remus _was_ paying attention, worrying at his lower lip.

"Lupin, Remus." It wasn't that he disliked Professor Voldemort's voice. It was a voice that could potentially be very likable. Remus had simply learned from a very young age that things you liked, loved even, were not things you automatically trusted. So it wasn't that he liked or disliked Voldemort's voice, just that he didn't fully trust it.

Remus stepped forward. He had no confident swagger like Sirius, but it wouldn't have looked right on him anyway. He was self-possessed, too wise and too old for his years to strut. His face was set in determined lines. 

He would not let the Sorting Hat know.

He swung himself up onto the stool and felt the hat go down over his eyes. There were eyes on him, and not being able to see them didn't mean he couldn't feel them.

"Well, well, well," said a small voice into his ear. It took all the finely tuned control he had not to jump. "You're strong. Hiding a lot of things, but you can't hide them from me!"

_Please_, Remus thought. _Please._

"Please what?"

_Don't tell anyone what I am._

"You don't know what you are, yet," the small voice said. "How do you expect me to know?"

_You said... _But it made sense to him. How was this supposed to decide for him where he went if he himself had no idea where it was he wanted to be? Three days ago he hadn't even known this place existed. It wasn't as if he had any friends. There was Sirius, who had been very nice, but he was probably just being kind. James and Lilly were only decent to him because of Sirius's kindness. Wherever he went, whichever house he was sent to, he wouldn't belong. Part of him wanted to, so badly. Part of him wanted to be the hero, knowing just how to jump into a situation and fix everything. But that wasn't who he was.

_I want to be strong_.

"Well," the Hat said. "GRYFFINDOR!" The cheering surged up in Remus's ears as he slipped down from the stool. He kept his eyes on his feet as he made his way to the Gryffindor table. The eyes on him made his skin crawl.

"Oi, Remus!" His ears caught his own name and almost tried to swivel before he lifted his head, searching out the owner of that familiar voice. Sirius was waving urgently to catch his attention, beckoning him over. Remus hesitated, and then changed course, trotting over to sit beside him. "Now we just have to wait for James."

Sirius was, Remus realized, the type of person who was always very confident. He felt strangely envious.

Lucius Malfoy was the only name between his own and James's that Remus recognized. The blond boy was sent to the Slytherin table, where he settled down between two meaty boys Remus didn't recognize. The rest of the names and the houses went by in a blur, and it was no surprise to Remus when "Potter, James" was followed by "GRYFFINDOR" and a resounding cheer throughout the Great Hall. He had gotten the impression from the way Sirius and James had acted on the train that where one boy went the other followed, no matter what.

After "Zabini, Maeve" was sent to the Slytherin table and the last of the cheers had died down, Professor Voldemort removed the Sorting Hat and the man Sirius and James had called Albus Dumbledore, the new headmaster. Unlike Professor Voldemort, Dumbledore's face wasn't overly likable. It was easy to read the emotions on his face and therefore Remus didn't just like him but trusted him, too.

"Welcome!" he cried out, looking genuinely glad to see the throng of students before him. "Welcome especially to all you first years -- we're rather in the same boat, after all! I won't keep you waiting to eat any longer. Thank you!" He sat and there was more clapping and cheering.

Yes, Remus decided. Much more trustworthy.

The meal wasn't something he paid much attention to. He had never eaten much anyway, and though this was more food than he had ever seen in his lifetime, he wasn't feeling particularly hungry. Sirius and James ate like wild animals, or two eleven year old boys. In all the excitement, no one was checking to see what Remus himself ate, or how much. The most he ate was a whole chocolate truffle tart. He'd found he had a sweet tooth for anything made with the dark, rich confection, after all.

At last it was time for bed. The head of Gryffindor house was Professor McGonagall, a young woman with dark hair pulled back into a tight librarian's bun. Sirius made a face behind her back the first chance he got. 

"Come along," she said, clasping her hands before her and moving off like a steamboat.

"What good luck _we've_ got," Sirius griped as he and the rest of the Gryffindors stood to follow her. Remus folded his napkin neatly and set it down on his seat, turning to follow.

"Remus?" A hand was placed on his shoulder and Remus froze. "Didn't mean to startle you -- I'm Professor Dumbledore. We should probably talk, before you turn in, mm?"

"All right."

"To my office, then."

"All right." Dumbledore removed the hand from Remus's shoulder and trotted off, leaving Remus to regain his composure and follow.

"Now," Dumbledore began, once he and Remus were both seated in his office, "I have made certain arrangements in preparation for your stay here."

"Thank you."

"No need, no need, my boy; I just thought perhaps we might like to talk these arrangements over, see how satisfactory they are." Dumbledore's eyes twinkled, hopefully searching Remus's face.

"All right."

"The only ones who will know about the nights of the full moon will be me and the nurse at the infirmary, Madam Pomfrey. You'll meet her shortly." Remus nodded and Dumbledore when on. "On the day of the full moon you'll be taken out of classes early to the location where you shall spend the night. If you'll follow me, I'll take you to the place." Again, Remus bobbed his head, slipping down from the chair that had dwarfed him. Dumbledore led him out of the school and into the dark night. There was a forest by the building and Remus shrank away from it, placing the Professor's body between his own and the trees.

They stopped at the edge of the woods, by a great willow tree whose branches struck out angrily at any who came near. Dumbledore hefted in his hand a long stick from the grass and poked thoughtfully at the trunk of the willow, until he struck a knob and the branches froze.

"This is the Whomping Willow," Dumbledore explained, "and the passage to where you'll be spending those nights is right through that entrance over there. Go on. We'll both of us have a look." Remus stepped forward to the hollow at the base of the tree. He hesitated for a moment, and then bent over to crawl inside. Dumbledore was behind him and Remus's instincts were telling him not to leave his back so exposed. Quickly he quelled that feeling, his knowledge overpowering his gut feelings.

The passage opened up finally into a room. Remus straightened, brushing off his worn robes, then falling still.

"This is it," Dumbledore said cheerily.

"What if I get out?" Remus turned around, brow creasing thoughtfully. "The passage is big enough for you, it's big enough..." He didn't finish.

"There's a second floor," Dumbledore explained. "If we shut the door up there, it should keep you in."

"Back home," Remus said softly, "we had a cage." It wasn't that he'd liked the cage. It made the animal in him feel trapped. But the part of him that was human felt safe, as if by locking himself in he was locking the world out.

"No student of mine is being put in a cage," Dumbledore murmured.

"All right." Silence fell between them for a few seconds. Remus broke it by stepping further into the room, towards the flight of stairs.

"Of course," Dumbledore said hurriedly, "the upstairs. After you." Remus climbed the creaky steps, each creak from his own feet followed by one from Dumbledore's. 

The upstairs room was empty save for a large, four poster bed in the middle of the room. Remus looked from it to Dumbledore, and the headmaster shrugged. 

"Now that you've seen it," he said, after giving Remus some time to inspect the place, "you'd best be getting into bed. I'll take you back to Gryffindor house myself." They went back down the stairs and crawled out of the willow into the night. Dumbledore prodded the knot in the wood once more and the branches went wild, clawing at the air left in their wake. The night was beautiful, the stars twinkling on and off in the sky. Remus lifted his eyes to glance at them, and then practically kept his eyes ahead of himself so that he wouldn't trip over any root or rock in his path. Dumbledore kept his arms folded over his chest. They didn't speak to each other, but the headmaster watched the boy intently from the corners of his bright eyes. Remus walked solidly, both feet firmly on the ground, his untrimmed hair falling carelessly into his eyes.

He looked too rooted for the magic of the grounds at night. His small hands were clenched into fists but the rest of his body was relaxed, as if there were specifications to what he was fighting for control over.

Back inside the castle, the odd look had disappeared. He seemed like any other shy child might, quiet and withdrawn. It didn't seem to bother him, the way the stairs switched destinations and the halls wound on without direction. He had no doubt that he would get to where he was going.

"Well," Dumbledore said as they stopped in front of a picture of a slumbering, plump woman in a very large, very pink dress. "Here we are." He coughed, and the woman shifted, snorting very demurely in her sleep. He coughed louder, and she awoke, spluttering a bit.

"Well, well, well? What is it? What's the matter?!" Remus tilted his head to the side. The painting was not only moving, but speaking to them, as well.

"Lizard Lips," Dumbledore said, very patiently. The woman in the painting made a sour sort of face, and the door beside her swung open.

"On with you, then," she grumbled, flopping over and closing her eyes.

"Now," Dumbledore said, before he turned away. "Your things should be next to your bed. Get some sleep. Tomorrow's your first day, after all." He smiled widely, and then trotted off, leaving Remus alone to make his way through a large, dark room and up a flight of stairs, where at last he stepped into the room he'd been seeking. Rows and rows of wonderfully comfortable looking four-poster beds were set up, all the canopies drawn. He could hear the sounds of snores coming from some of them, which meant that most of the other Gryffindors were already asleep.

Determined, he padded to the only bed whose canopy hadn't yet been drawn shut. His shabby suitcase had been placed on the mattress, next to the rest of his things. Without even bothering to change into his pajamas, he slipped into bed and curled up, falling asleep a moment later.

He slept deeply and had only one dream. He was running through the forest behind Hogwarts, the trees forming a tunnel over his head. They hummed to him, a song he half-remembered and still half-loved. It was a foggy night. Above him, he couldn't see the moon. Suddenly, the clouds had cleared, and that full, pale shape shone through. His hands and feet were suddenly paws, and he was bounding across the earth for some spot of freedom far ahead of him. Beside him, he felt another body, shaggy and warm, but he didn't think it was another wolf. There was something about it that was very familiar, and something about it that he knew he needed to explore further. But all he could do was continue to thunder forward, towards whatever it was he wanted so badly.

When he woke in the morning, the forest's hold on him was too weak to force him to remember his dreams.

The first few days flew by so rapidly that Remus could barely remember a single event in any of them. His schedule was filled with class after class, giving him workloads he surprisingly didn't mind. For the first time in his life, Remus was introduced to the brand new concept of homework, which didn't bother him at all, though Sirius and James spent all their free time complaining about it.

In the greenhouses behind the castle, Professor Sprout taught them Herbology. Professor Binns taught History of Magic in a stuffy classroom, putting many to sleep. The Charms teacher was Professor Flitwick, a tiny young man who stood on a pile of books in order to see his students over his desk. Transfiguration was taught by Professor McGonagall, who, though she was incredibly strict, made the subject as fascinating as it could be, though the students had to start small. Potions was taught by Professor Voldemort, who was a good teacher, though he still gave Remus the creeps.

After the first few days, Remus no longer felt left behind. At least five other first years had been raised as 'muggles' all their lives, and were just beginning to understand what being a witch or a wizard entailed. Remus himself immediately showed promise in most of his subjects, working diligently both in and out of class. He kept away from the other students, withdrawing to his bed after classes to do his homework, read for an hour or two, and then go to sleep.

The one class he dreaded from the start was Potions. He didn't just have the class with the other Gryffindor first-years, but with the Slytherin first-years, as well. Among their numbers were Lucius Malfoy and his two friends, known only as Crabbe and Goyle, as well as a thin, sallow boy with greasy hair who was called Severus Snape. The four of them hated Sirius, sharing Lucius's grudge from Platform 9 and 3/4, but chose to torture Remus, because he never fought back. They did little things, such as spilling a vial of bats' eyes on his books, or knocking into his desk, or tripping him accidentally, and never got caught. Remus played it down so that no one would notice. The last thing he needed was Sirius getting into trouble because of him.

A week passed in what felt like the blink of an eye. Remus sat in a window seat in the Gryffindor Common Room, curled around a book. He read with a hunger and passion he didn't show elsewhere in his life, eyes running eagerly over every word. A few feet away, seated around a low table, Sirius and James were doing their History of Magic assignment.

"I can't believe this," Sirius grumbled, flipping through a huge, ancient book, "who cares about these people?"

"Well," James groaned, "apparently Professor Binns does."

"Professor Binns doesn't care about anything. He's about as dead as Emeric the Evil is!" Remus felt like flattening his ears, until he remembered he couldn't. He shifted, blocking out the sound of their laughter, and plunged back into his book. Everything was gloriously silent for a few minutes, until someone tapped him on the shoulder and he whirled around, snapping his book shut. "Didn't mean to startle you," Sirius mumbled sheepishly, tugging his hand back. "Just...wondering if you could help us...with the History of Magic essay. Since, you know, you handed yours in yesterday, and..."

Remus blinked. "You want my help?"

"Of course," Sirius said, running his fingers through his hair as he grinned lopsidedly. "I mean-- you're the smartest one in the class, Remus. You actually--_ know_ what Professor Binns is going _on_ about."

"Oh." Remus blinked again. "All right." He set his book down and stood, stretching his cramping muscles. "What part are you stuck on?"

"The first _sentence_," James moaned, lifting his head as the other two approached.

"I see," Remus murmured, his voice wry.

"Sit down," Sirius advised, pulling up another chair. "This'll probably be a while." Remus obeyed, moving the book closer with one hand, and the parchment James and Sirius had been working on in the other. After giving their work a preliminary glance, he folded the top pieces of parchment in half and shoved them aside.

"Hey!" James exclaimed. "We worked hard on that--"

"It was very bad," Remus stated simply.

"It really was," Sirius agreed. A moment later he flashed a weak, apologetic grin.

"I know," James admitted, frowning half-heartedly. "So? What do you suggest?"

"First of all," Remus explained, taking up a quill, "you need to put what information you have down in an outline."

"But we don't _have_ any information," Sirius lamented. Remus gave him a slightly puzzled look. "What?" Sirius grumbled. "That book isn't even written in _English_, it's impossible to get through a single sentence!"

"Not if you can read," Remus murmured.

"Was that an insult?" Sirius sputtered. He wasn't angry, just incredulous.

"I think so," James said, hiding a smile behind his sleeve. Sirius choked, and then burst into laughter, James joining him in an instant. Remus's lips twitched oddly. Still laughing, Sirius clapped a hand on his shoulder, and Remus didn't feel as if it was an intrusion, nor did he feel like turning around to snap the boy's fingers off with his teeth. He ducked his head down and let his lips curve up into a smile. They parted, and a laugh, rusty and threadbare, jingled shakily forth. It grew stronger, more vibrant, as the three of them laughed harder and longer.

Sirius thought it was the strangest and most wonderful sound he'd ever heard.

The next day, Double Potions with the Slytherins was first period. Remus waited until Lucius and his friends had taken their seats, and then took his own place strategically across the room from them. If he could just _avoid_ trouble, he figured, everything would be just fine. He sat down quietly and took out his things, setting up as efficiently as he could. He wasn't expecting the tap on his shoulder, or the familiar voice in his ear.

"Morning, Remus." Remus cringed slightly under the touch, but softened when he recognized Sirius's faintly accented tones.  
  
"Good morning."

"Look, I was just wondering..." Sirius shifted uncomfortably, running his fingers through his hair, carefully keeping his eyes everywhere but on Remus's face.

"Yes?"

"You see, James sort of wanted to be paired up with Lilly," Sirius went on, rolling his eyes, "you know how the boy's all soft in the head about that girl, but that sort of left _me_ out in the mud, y'know? 'Cause today we're picking partners, and all."

"I see."

"And I was just wondering if maybe you wouldn't mind, too much, that is, if I," he focused on an empty vial and fingered it nervously, "if I might..."

"You'd make quite a mess with James," Remus murmured thoughtfully. It was probably a very good thing that James and Lilly would be working together, rather than James and Sirius. The trouble they'd cause would be immeasurable.

"I'm always making quite a mess with _James_," Sirius mumbled miserably.

"Yes, you are."

"Well, there you have it. He's already setting up with Lilly, but I'll just--"

"Where are your things?"

"What?" Sirius blinked, startled out of some rambling nightmare he'd created in his head. "What things?"

"Your books and your notes. You'll need them if we're going to work together."

"Work tog-- right. Right, of course, they're just-- over there. I'll go-- get them. I'll only take a moment." With a grin and an overdramatized sigh of relief, Sirius sped off to gather up his things and deposit them unceremoniously on what was now his and Remus's desk. Remus looked up and nodded, smiling hesitantly. Sirius may not have been a fantastic student, but he was much better at smiling than Remus was.

"Now," Remus said, "the first thing we needed was--" A large crash cut him off. Goyle had shoved his rather bulky way through the narrow space between Maeve Zabini's and Crabbe's desk and Remus's and Sirius's own, and had seemingly miscalculated how much room he had. The shards of glass from two broken beakers were scattered over the floor beneath Remus's books and Sirius's mortar and pestle. Remus winced and pulled back, ducking his head down in that way he had. It reminded Sirius suddenly of the wolfhound pup he and his brother had raised back home, whenever it was trying to prove its subservience to another, bigger dog. 

Sirius's lip curled back, and something angry emerged from the back of his throat in what sounded strangely like a snarl.

"Oops," said Goyle slowly, a big smile plastered on his wide face. "Was an accident."

"Right," Sirius snapped, voice tensed with anger, "and I'm the bloody king of France."

"It was an accident," Remus said, softly.

"You see?" Goyle said, clasping his two dish-plate sized hands together in a sign of peace that seemed as familiar to Goyle as cracking heads would be to Ghandi. "An accident."

"What has happened over here?" Professor Voldemort had come up to them and was hovering over the situation like a great dark shadow. Remus bent down, scraping up the broken glass into one small pile, making sure he didn't have to look up into that face. He could feel the man's form over him like a total eclipse, looming and omnipresent.

"Knocked into the desk," Goyle mumbled under his breath.

"Really," Voldemort sighed, shaking his head, "be more _careful_ next time." He swept off, escorting Goyle personally back to his desk. Remus straightened, books clutched tightly to his chest.

"You let him get _away_ with it," Sirius hissed accusingly, wrenching Remus's books from his arms and slamming them down onto the table. Remus lifted his thumb to his lips, hiding a cut against them, and then went back to the instructions for the simple practice potion they were supposed to be mixing.

"Two ounces powdered--"

"Are you listening to me?!"

"Not really, no," Remus replied honestly. "I'm trying to mix these ingredients correctly."

"And _I'm_ trying to _talk_ to you! You can't let people treat you that way!"

"You're very loud." 

Sirius growled and then lowered his voice, bringing his face very close to Remus's own.

"You let them walk all over you. You can't let them do that!"

"Yes," Remus said, "I can." Sirius was so outraged he was struck speechless. "Hand me that vial over there, the one that's all green." No response. Remus moved past Sirius and got it for himself, then went back to their cauldron.

"_Why_? Why don't you _do_ something about it?"

"Because it's really a lot easier not to," Remus said truthfully, after a moment's pause. "Help me get this stopper out?" Remus half expected the other boy to scream in aggravation. It was a testament to Sirius's will-power, however little he had of it, that he instead took the vial in his hand and worked the cork out vehemently. "Thank you," Remus said.

The rest of the class was spent in silence. Remus half felt as if he should apologize, but he didn't know for what. He hadn't done anything wrong. He barely knew why Sirius was angry. Sirius could do with himself as he pleased, and Remus could do the same. It was all very simple, as Remus saw it. So why, then, was Sirius so angry?

After class Sirius stormed off, leaving Remus to stay a minute late in the classroom cleaning up. As he turned to go, he found both Crabbe and Goyle standing before him, Lucius between them and a few steps back.

"Funny," Lucius said, with a nasty edge to his voice, "how many accidents a person can have in one day. Don't you think so, Lupin?" Crabbe reached out his hands, wrenching Remus's books from his hands. 

"Oops," he said cheerfully. 

"How very careless of you, Crabbe," Lucius scolded, looking just as cheerful, but a lot meaner.

"Sorry," Crabbe said, throwing the books across the room.

"You _must_ be more_ careful_ next time, Crabbe," Lucius continued, shaking his head with an emotion that was trying to emulate disappointment without ever having _seen_ it before.

"I'm late to my next class," Remus said. He didn't feel angry. He felt patient, as if he could just wait for this to pass, pick up his things, and go on to his next class. It didn't pay to get angry or even annoyed at such things. People like Lucius Malfoy tired very easily of their playthings, and moved on just as quickly.

"Are you? That's just terrible -- isn't it terrible, Goyle?" Goyle stepped forward, nodding slowly and deliberately as if even that were a complex task. Remus bowed his head, hugging himself and let the boy come at him. "I'm sure you can explain to the professor that you've had-- an _accident_." Remus steeled himself, averting his eyes. If you made eye contact, it was taken as confrontational.

"An accident," Goyle echoed. Crabbe chuckled softly, ponderously.

"Well," said Sirius, as he brought one of Remus's heavier textbooks down on the back of Goyle's head, "accidents happen. Isn't that a shame." Remus looked up immediately and caught Sirius flashing him a wink.

It was like fire in his chest. He didn't know what to make of it. He didn't know why it was so strong. He didn't know what the sweetness in his veins was, or how it made his heart pound.

Crabbe came at Sirius as Goyle toppled over like the Tower of Babel. Sirius tossed another book at him as a distraction and, ducking beneath his huge fists, moved to interpose himself between Remus and Lucius. The blond boy's face was the color of a ripe tomato. This was obviously not the sort of 'accident' that made him and his friends laugh together.

"Why are you doing this?" Remus asked Sirius Black, his voice hushed.

"Because _you're_ not," Sirius replied.

"_Enough_ of _this_," Lucius spat out, once Goyle had gotten his bearings and had moved to do as Sirius had. 

"Why don't you fight as much as you _talk_, Malfoy," Sirius returned, just as vehemently.

"We'll see who should be giving out the orders, Black." Lucius gave Goyle a shove, and he obediently plowed forward, swinging a fist that Sirius easily ducked. Remus bit his lower lip, and then crawled back a few steps, picking up his scattered books without taking his eyes off the fight. Sirius was landing his punches, but they certainly weren't very effective. Goyle wasn't laying a finger on Sirius, but if he did, the fight would have been over in an instant. 

Behind them both, Lucius was tugging out his wand and training it on Sirius's back.

Remus faltered. That _thing_ was hot inside him, like danger and the forest at night. The wolf got angry enough for both of them, but Remus only knew what anger was the same way he knew about Narnia and all those 'Once Upon A Times' he'd read. Heroes got angry; people like Sirius got angry.

He dropped all but one of his books and scrambled a few steps forward, moving past Goyle and Sirius, stepping over Crabbe's prone form, bringing himself face to face with Lucius Malfoy.

"Hullo," he said.

Lucius had never heard a voice that sounded so terrifying in all his life. He wouldn't figure it out, but the reason it was so bone chilling was that it lacked everything it should have held. It wasn't pretending to be anything. The anger it was covering up was more than any one boy of eleven should have possessed.

A moment later he brought _Magical Theory_ by Albert Waffling down on Lucius's hand, which was clenched around his wand. Lucius yelped in pain and stumbled backwards.

"Goyle," he sputtered, recoiling from what he saw, or didn't see, in Remus's face. The bigger boy understood at once. He allowed Sirius to hit him once more, letting the blow slide off him, and then shuffled away, helping a groggy Crabbe to regain his feet. "This is _far_ from over, Lupin and Black," Lucius warned, not even able to wave a shaky finger as he cradled his mashed hand. A moment later, he and the other two turned and scarpered.

Remus straightened a little, pushing his hair back from his eyes. "Thank you again," he said.

"Thank _you_," Sirius murmured, rubbing at his knuckles, which were much the worse for wear this time, "for waking up."

"Thank _you_," Remus continued, a twinkle in his eyes, "for _waking_ me up." Sirius gave him a look. "Right. Sorry. Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine." Sirius stared blankly at the back of his hand. Remus paused, then trotted over, setting his book-turned-weapon down on a stool and taking Sirius's hand in both of his.

"If you don't put something on this, it'll swell up by lunch." Sirius nearly burst with pride. Once again, Remus had to duck his head down to keep from smiling.

"Come on," Sirius said, tossing his dark, overlong hair back, "or we'll be late for class."

"Right," Remus murmured. Together, they gathered up his things and hurried out of the room, side by side.

After that nothing could separate the two of them. Where Remus was Sirius would inevitably be found, sticking up for the smaller boy or getting some last minute help with an assignment from him or just trying to make him laugh, which was a practically impossible task. In turn, where Sirius was Remus could always be seen beside him, as if he thought he could soak in some of the larger, braver, louder boy's color and intensity.

The two of them soon became the _three_ of them, Sirius, Remus and James, and the three of them just as quickly became the _four_ of them, Lilly Evans joining the group of boys without seeming to give a bat's wing about having them as best friends. She and Remus got along well enough to make Sirius jealous over the lost of his best friend and James jealous over the loss of Lilly Evans.

Halfway through the first school year another Gryffindor by the name of Peter Pettigrew, small, plump and terrified of mostly everything, became the fifth in their circle of friends. He looked up to James and Sirius with an admiration just as fierce but more obvious than Remus's, and he proved himself during an incident with Lucius and his slimy friend Snape (in which several potions exploded and Professor Voldemort had to intervene before Sirius lost an eye and Lucius lost his head).

As for the nights of the full moon, Remus's absences were in the beginning barely noticed, and, as he and Sirius grew inseparable, he was able to make excuses based on his health or the health of some relative that Sirius readily believed. After all, what could Remus possibly have to hide?

Christmas break had come and half passed by, as well, and it was on one frost-bitten morning that Remus sat, poised on the edge of his Hogwarts bed, trying not to open all his letters at once. They had just arrived an hour earlier by Owl Post, and he'd received a whopping four of them.

The first one he allowed himself to open was Etienne's, written neatly in an accountants careful hand. Remus realized suddenly that handwriting was just like his own, and he swelled slightly with pride.

Dear Remus,  
It's cold here in Canterbury. It's been quiet in the apartment.  


    I bought these books and thought of you. They were some of my favorites, when I was younger.
Merry Christmas, son.  
-Etienne  
PS: I miss you.

Remus hid an awkward smile while reading his father's letter, feeling a bit guilty. He missed Etienne. He wished he could have been home for the holidays, despite the wonderful food and the library and warm bed Hogwarts had to offer. Still, they didn't have the money for taking Remus back and forth.

Instead, he had to settle on reading and re-reading his father's letter, and then taking his time to write one in return:

Dear Papa,  


    It is much warmer here in Hogwarts than it was in Canterbury those past two winters. I got the books you sent by Owl Post this morning, and I can't wait to read them.  

    Most of the others have gone home to visit for Christmas Break, but a few have stayed behind. It's rather quiet here without Sirius and James, but it also feels quite peaceful. Peter and I are working on some spells together as extra credit for Potions to make up for the little trouble we had with Lucius Malfoy last week. It's the least we can do, after all.  

    It's been lonely for a while, without you. I'll miss our old Christmas mornings. Still, I have classes to look forward to, and the day when Sirius and James get back. They said they'd bring me back a Christmas present each. I don't think I've ever gotten presents from anyone but you before.. I wonder what sort of things they'll get me?
  
Merry Christmas, papa.

Love,  
Remus

PS: Don't let the Chocolate Frogs I've sent escape.   
PPS: Don't let the name 'Chocolate Frogs' fool you.

Remus folded up the letter and slipped it into an envelope, which he placed inside the package of chocolates he'd prepared for his father. He set his quill down, and turned to the other unopened letters he'd received, amidst the opened package and his father's usual Christmas gift of books.

The first was from James. He could tell by the messy scrawl:

REMUS,  
Wish you were here. My family's nuts!   


    As much as I can't believe I'm saying this, I can't wait until the end of break.
Happy Christmas!  
-James

The second letter was from Lilly, and the script was at least ten times neater.

Dear Remus,  


    I hope it isn't too lonely there in Hogwarts with just you and Peter there. Still, you're both probably getting fed better than any of us who've gone home, so consider yourselves lucky. And we'll all be back to bother the two of you so soon you'll wish we were still far away. Don't get too lost in some book or another before we can come back to rescue you!
Merry Christmas!  
Sincerely,  
Lilly E.

The third and last letter, the one he was trying to postpone opening so he could anticipate it properly, was Sirius's. It looked thicker than the other two, but Sirius did tend to write like a two year old when he was excited, so it didn't mean much. But still...

At last, Remus gave in, and tore open the letter eagerly.

Remus,  


    It's bloody lonely here without you. Wish you could have come along and kept me company. You could have met my family, too, though I doubt if you'd be too keen on that idea. We're all very much into the Christmas spirit, if you know what I mean. It's nice, and there are lots of presents under the tree, though some of them have a suspiciously sock-like air to them. Sometimes, though, the Christmas spirit gets a little bit too cheerful for too long.  

    Don't get the wrong idea. It's absolutely amazing to be back. You never know how much you miss things once you're taken away from them, you know? Just don't tell anyone that I've felt homesick enough to enjoy even Aunt Eustace's fruitcakes. I don't half believe it myself.   

    On a better note: my mum makes the most fantastic Christmas pies, you wouldn't believe it, and we're going to have a ham, this year. It smells so good I can hardly concentrate on writing this letter, but I promised you I wouldn't let you rot away all alone in Hogwarts over the break, and so I'll do what I can to keep focused.
For your sake, of course.  


    I miss you and the rest. I asked my brothers' advice for what I should get you, and if you don't bloody adore it, I'll make sure Crabbe and Goyle get you next ambush in the halls.
No, seriously. I do hope you like it. Cost me enough, anyway.  


    I think, now, I've wasted enough of my precious time on you. The twins are downstairs -- they've wanted me to help them with painting a their toy boat for a while now, and I might as well keep my promises to other people, too.  

    I miss you, Remus. Like I said, it's bloody lonely here, even if it is nice to be back with them all.
Merry Christmas!  
S.B.

Remus read his letters over and over again by the heat from the fireside, feet tucked up underneath him. At last, he folded them all up and returned them to their envelopes, keeping them close by his bedside. After that, he went to mail the package and the letter for his father.

Sirius would be coming back soon, along with James and Lilly, and the life he'd begun to know and love would start up again.

"Your father sent you all these books?" Peter murmured incredulously as Remus returned.

"He always gets me books, for Christmas," Remus replied, settling back against his pillow.

"My dad got me socks," Peter sighed, shaking his head mournfully.

"You can borrow a book any time you like."

"Really?"

"Of course." Remus had yet to understand the way most minds worked about possessions. The wolf was possessive of its territory and of all that it claimed in a way that only an animal could be. So, Remus had learned how to compensate. Everything that was his was also his friends'. Sometimes, he felt the low, growling desire to own, but he was good at ignoring it. He was best at keeping himself otherwise occupied. "Come on, Peter. Breakfast should be ready by now." Immediately, the short, pale boy lit up eagerly, forgetting all about his disappointing socks. Remus had to admit, they looked as if they'd been made with fish hooks and netting.

"That's the best part about staying here for the holidays," Peter whispered reverently as he got on one of his warm, hand-knit socks. "No one's here to care whether you have pudding for breakfast, or what."

"Or chocolate," Remus murmured, lips twitching faintly.

"And there's no Crabbe or Goyle," Peter muttered, scowling as he hopped into the second sock, "waiting for you in the hallways."

"We'd show them not to mess with us," Remus said. His voice was dry. He wasn't one who could make bravado seem plausible, like Sirius or even James. 

"Yes, of course," Peter acknowledged absently, and then scurried off, following his nose and his friend to the scent of food.

Sirius and James arrived back in Hogwarts loudly. Sirius never did anything with half a heart, always doing things with everything he had, or not doing them at all. He pounced Remus in the hallway as he was going to the library and took him prisoner as James laid out their presents with Lilly on Remus's bed in preparation for when their captive would be produced. Remus put up enough of a fight to keep Sirius satisfied, more than willing to play along.

Lilly had bought him a beautiful, first-rate writing quill at one of the Flourish & Blotts in the posh neighborhood where she lived.

"That's for when you're doing our homework," James explained, grinning from ear to do. "Now, you can do it _properly_."

"Shove off it," Lilly muttered fondly, taking her own advice and shoving the boy playfully. Remus inspected the quill for a long, long time, taking in its fine line and the softness of the feathers. It would make writing a much easier and much neater task. 

"Thank you," he murmured. It was the understated way he said it that made Lilly blush, and mutter something polite under her breath, and feel so pleased with herself that her cheeks flushed pink.

James had gotten him a new cauldron as a sort of apology for the one a Potions class accident had scorched. It was in perfect condition, the pewter sparkling. Remus noticed immediately it was a much more expensive make than the one he'd originally owned that had been ruined in the misadventure.

"It's wonderful," he breathed. 

"It isn't anything, really," James mumbled, scuffing a foot on the floor.

"It is," Remus insisted, taking as much time over it as he took over the quill. "Thank you, James."

"Yeah," James said, cheeks just as pink as Lilly's had been, keeping his eyes fixed on the bottom of his robe. "It's the least I could do, anyway."

Lastly was Sirius's package -- or, _packages_. There was not only one brightly decorated box, but two, left to open.

"Couldn't help myself," Sirius explained with a sheepish, trademark grin, and then turned his back on the scene, pretending not to care. Remus waited until he felt Sirius's eyes on him, and knew that his friend had gotten a good view over his shoulder. Only then could he tear into the cheerful Christmas wrapping paper, feeling like any normal child might on a crisp, Christmas morning.

The first and smaller package was a bar of the best and most expensive dark chocolate from a little shoppe Sirius had often told Remus about. The gold foil around it caught the light enticingly, and Remus could breathe in the rich scent of the chocolate within without even having to unwrap it. 

"You'd better be planning on sharing that with all of us," James grumbled, then made a loud 'ooph!' sound as Sirius dug an elbow into his stomach. "That _hurt_!"

"Good," Sirius hissed. "Now shut your stupid gob or I'll shut it for you."

The other, bigger package took longer to open, partly because the wrapping job had been done by a skilled and practical hand, and partly because Remus wanted to make this moment last as long as he could. He slipped the ribbon off and set it neatly aside, and then slid his graceful fingers beneath the paper so that he would rip it as little as possible. Sirius licked his lips nervously.

Remus opened up the box at last, peering in. It was hard to keep his face flat and emotionless, harder still to keep his eyes from flashing with excitement.

In the box was a new satchel, made of the finest leather, with even a brass label on the clasp. His own name, Remus J. Lupin, was ingrained into it, catching the light as the chocolate wrapper had. Remus lifted his head, catching Sirius's eye. Sirius knew full well that his old bag had been completely destroyed; it was old, and one too many 'accidents' from Lucius Malfoy's hands had finally done it in.

Remus ran his fingers over the soft leather, breathing in that scent, as well. It was fresh, and expensive, and wonderful. Remus had never owned something so rich feeling in all his life. For a moment or two, he was speechless, just resting his palms on the bag.

"It'll, uhm," Sirius began, coughing nervously, "last you, the man at the shop said."

"Yes," Remus said. 

"I wasn't sure what sort of style you'd like," Sirius went on, running his hands through his hair, "so I got the one that was closest, y'know, to what you had." He coughed again, shifting from foot to foot.

"It's perfect," Remus said.

"And I know that it's not the best of-- what?" Sirius blinked widely, caught by surprise. He turned slowly, scratching at his cheek, deep blue eyes sort of unsure, but a lot brighter, now.

"It's perfect," Remus repeated.

"Oh," Sirius said.

"Thank you," Remus managed, rubbing weakly at the corner of one eye.

"You're welcome," Sirius said, flushing faintly. He didn't puff up like a pigeon. He didn't swell with pride. He just stood there and blushed, pink tingeing his cheeks. James and Lilly looked at each other. Finally, James coughed, loudly, to break the tension that stretched between them.

"Well," he said loudly, "Merry Christmas, Remus."

"Merry Christmas," Remus murmured, and then snapped out of it. "Merry Christmas," he tried again, louder. "I don't know how to begin to thank you--"

"Don't," Sirius interrupted, quickly. "I know you, Remus, you'll start thinking you owe us something for this -- you don't owe us anything."

"We're just glad you like them," Lilly added, smiling encouragingly.

"We had to make sure none of us got you the same thing," James put in, grinning widely again.

"But we're glad you like everything so much," Sirius finished off, an equal grin spreading over his own lips.

"It's-- wonderful," Remus whispered, eyes roving over his three best friends. He hadn't expected anything like this. Why should he have? He'd never gotten anything more than books for Christmas.

He'd never had friends before, though. And certainly not friends like this.

"Stop looking like this is such a surprise," Sirius muttered, only pretending to be angry. "We're friends. You're our friend. So, we got you Christmas presents. It isn't that big a deal."

"It is," Remus said softly, "it is." They stood there, uncomfortable for a moment, Remus on one side and the other three facing him. 

"That's it," Sirius grumbled, "I've heard enough. C'mere, you big idiot." He moved across the distance between them and grabbed Remus up in a tight, half awkward bear hug. "Merry bloody Christmas. Expect presents, in the future." Remus was stunned, standing there in the brief but tight circle of Sirius's arms, until the boy pulled back and shuffled away.

"All right," Remus said.

"Merry Christmas," Lilly echoed, embracing him as well, though it was a little less awkward and a little less tight.

"Merry Christmas," James repeated for the third time, pulling him close and ruffling his hair.

"Merry Christmas," Remus said at last, laughing that rusty, patched-up laugh. It was worth the money he'd spent, Sirius thought to himself, just to hear that soft, hesitant laugh break through Remus's lips to sparkle like jewels on the air. Sirius reached a hand over, ruffling Remus's hair as James had. Remus had soft hair, like velvet, and though it was unkempt, it was still softer than anything Sirius had felt in his life. He dropped his hand after a moment, his eyes twinkling as he grinned.

"All right, Remus," he said, flopping onto the boy's bed. "Tell us _everything_ we've missed."

Time flew faster than Remus had ever known it to. He wasn't dreading the finals the teachers were going to give as the year drew to a close. He was dreading having to leave the school, and the library, and the classes, and, most of all, his friends.

The nights of the full moon had gotten no easier. If anything, they'd gotten worse as the year passed. The happier Remus got, the hungrier the wolf became, wanting that happiness and receiving nothing but loneliness. The wolf wanted so desperately the freedom Remus had found. The wolf wanted the forest, wanted to give in to its call.

The wolf could not.

One night, a day after the full moon, Remus was curled up in bed, recuperating from a particularly hard time. His shoulder ached from having slammed it into the shack door one too many times, and the fresh cuts and bruises all over his chest, arms and thighs were stinging. He didn't even have the energy to lose himself in one of his new books. The backs of his eyes throbbed faintly, and he felt dizzy just lying there.

"Brought you up some hot chocolate," Sirius murmured, breaking into his reverie. "Madam Pomfrey caught me in the hall, and said it might do you some good, so here I am."

"Ngh," Remus agreed, opening his eyes halfway to squint up at his friend's form. His throat felt tight and rough, like sandpaper. He hardly trusted it enough to let himself speak. Sirius nodded, sitting down gently on the bed beside him, holding a steaming mug of hot cocoa in both hands, as if it were the Holy Grail. 

"You want to sit up?"

"That would be nice." Remus winced, and Sirius sighed deeply.

"Then give me a second, will you? Have some faith." After setting the mug of cocoa down by the bed, Sirius slipped an arm around Remus waist.

"Ow," Remus said softly.

"Sorry."

"It's all right."

"Still-- sorry. Now-- just let me help you up-- tell me if I'm hurting you."

"You're not. I'm all right." Using Sirius to support him, he sat up, leaning half against the pillow behind him, and half against Sirius's shoulder.

"Bloody-- Remus, what _happened_ to you?" Sirius watched him fretfully, forgetting about the hot chocolate in his worry.

"It's nothing."

"What do you mean, it's nothing, of _course_ it isn't nothing! You look awful--"

"Really, Sirius. It isn't anything. Trust me." Sirius ran his eyes over Remus's thin, gaunt form, the way it slumped wearily, the way there were dark circles under his eyes and tired lines around his mouth. He wasn't convinced, but he didn't want to push the other boy. He knew Remus too well to think he could get away with that.

"All right," Sirius muttered, giving in. "Just have some of the cocoa Madam Pomfrey sent up, and I'll keep my mouth shut."

"All right. Sounds like a bargain." Sirius pulled back just slightly, reaching over to take the mug again, offering it to Remus unhappily. Remus took it in both hands and drank it gratefully, the hot, sweet liquid soothing his ragged throat. "James has the homework you missed from classes yesterday. We were all worried about you, Lilly and James and Peter and me." Remus quelled the urge to correct his grammar and simply remained silent, revelling in the warmth of Sirius's body next to his own, and the warmth that the chocolate spread through him.

"Better?"

"Much." Sirius slowly pulled the arm that was twined tightly around Remus's waist away, letting his friend lean back fully against the pillow behind him.

"This happens an awful lot, Remus." Remus hid himself behind the mug of hot cocoa and flinched.

"What does?"

"You know. Your missing classes, your coming back like this. It's happened-- well, ever since the beginning of the year, come to think of it."

"It's nothing."

"Well, it must be _something_--"

"No," Remus said. "It isn't. Forget about it, Sirius. Please." Sirius opened his mouth and then caught Remus's eyes. They were sad, and pleading, little flecks of gold inside the dark brown. They were guarded, as always. Remus was a world unto himself, a complete and utter mystery.

If Remus wanted to keep himself that way, then so be it.

"Right."

"Thanks."

"Mm."

"For the hot cocoa and everything."

"Don't mention it." Sirius sat there for a mere moment longer, and then stood, trotting off to leave.

"Sirius--"

"Just feel better, all right? Feel better, Remus." He winked back at him, grinning rather defeatedly. "I'll see you later." Remus watched Sirius's back as he moved out, shutting the door quietly behind him. The chocolate was comforting, but he felt the slight edge of worry gnawing at his chest. He'd never had nothing to lose before. Now, he was going to have to be much more careful.

It had to happen sometime, he knew. But it was sooner rather than later that Remus's first year at Hogwarts was over. 

He'd had a busy year. First, he'd passed his finals, and he'd helped Sirius and James to do the same; more importantly, he'd made it through potions without getting killed or at least maimed by Lucius and his ever-lasting grudge. Remus had come to call his canopy bed with its soft mattress and warm down quilt home. 

He'd started to expect Sirius and James to just _be_ there in the morning, when he woke up.

As a boy who had never been dependent on anything at all before in his life, he realized as he travelled back to Platform 9 and 3/4 that he had people, three of them (and maybe even four), whom he could depend on. It wasn't just for friendship, though that was nice, too. It was for stability, and for that sense of belonging he'd always craved, but didn't want to admit to wanting.

Sirius was by far the closest to him that anyone had ever been. His mother had invaded, and his father had cultivated his privacy. Sirius was just his other half, one part of the whole they made when they were together. Sirius had taught him how to smile and then how to laugh. He had taught Sirius how to be a little more _serious_. They were best friends, Remus had realized late one night as they worked on a project together, and it had filled him with this warm, strong feeling, as if he could have conquered the world just from knowing Sirius would stick by him no matter what.

He would miss his friend, over the summer.

He would miss being the sort of person who _had_ a best friend.

"Are you gonna miss me?" Sirius leaned over his shoulder, peering out the window along side his friend. Against the glass pane, their faces were side by side, equal circles of condensation blossoming from their parted lips.

"Yes," Remus answered honestly.

"Mm," Sirius murmured, grin fading as he watched their reflections. They looked good, side by side. They looked right. Like they belonged.

"I've never had so much fun in my life," Remus said after a moment, keeping his eyes focused on the world speeding by past the window. For some reason it was easier to say things to Sirius without looking at him.

"You needed it."

"I know."

"And naturally, I saw that, so I decided to help you out."

"Yes." They were silent for a while after that. Sirius grew accustomed to the pattern of Remus's breaths, and tried to make his own match, so that they were breathing along the same rhythms.

"I'm," Sirius mumbled after a moment, "going to bloody miss _you_. Don't know why. Stupid little bookworm that you are."

"I don't know why either."

"Oh, shut up." Sirius scowled darkly at his own reflection in the window. Remus had never seen him look so miserable. "I said I'm going to bloody miss you, and I'm going to bloody miss you."

"All right."

"Don't you all right me."

"All--" Remus broke off, unsure of what he could say to that.

"You're so-- you're so annoyingly clueless all the time!"

"Sorry."

"And you just sit there saying 'sorry' and 'all right' to me all the time, like the bloody git that you are."

"Sirius."

"What?"

"A simple 'good-bye, Remus' would be a lot nicer." Sirius blinked wide blue eyes at the smaller boy. The both of them began to laugh, slowly at first, and then loud and fast and a little sad, too. Remus had a way of seeing right through everything Sirius did or tried to do. Remus had a way of understanding everything Sirius did or tried to do better than Sirius himself could.

Remus was, Sirius knew full well, a hundred times smarter than Sirius could ever hope to be.

"Good-bye, Remus," Sirius murmured softly.

"Good-bye, Sirius," Remus returned.

"I'll write, maybe," Sirius ventured.

"You'll forget."

"Mm. I know." They both laughed again, and turned their eyes to the window, watching the scenery streak by.

"So-- next year, then."

"Mm. Next year, then."

Etienne barely recognized his son as he stepped off the train. He looked more alive than Etienne had ever known him to look, eyes sparkling and vibrant, lips seeming used to laughter and smiles. Next to him was a taller, broad shouldered, dark-haired boy, who stuck close, carrying both their suitcases. Etienne felt his lips curve up into an irrepressible smile, and he turned his eyes away, giving them their privacy to say their goodbyes. He knew, though, when Remus noticed him. He stood a little straighter, and let his tired eyes take in happily the sight of his son.

Remus had grown. He looked stronger, more vibrant. The boy who had stood beside him was letting him out of a fiercely tight bear hug, and had given him back his suitcase. They lingered together for a moment. Etienne had missed his son terribly, but in this moment, he knew fully just how worth it giving him up would be.

"Hello," Etienne murmured as Remus pulled himself away from his friend, and came close.

"Hello."

"How was your ride back?"

"Fine." They stood together in silence for a few heartbeats, Etienne looking away into the distance, Remus down at his feet. At last, the awkwardness grew almost too much for the man to bear.

"Remus--"

"Papa." They looked up at each other, and suddenly the both of them smiled.

"I'm glad you're back, Remus."

"Mm. I'm-- I'm glad to be back, too." He brushed his hair back from his eyes. Etienne thought how much like Dalila he looked, back when Dalila had been a lovely, wonderful mystery. Dalila had needed to mature. Remus had already done all of that. Now, he was the spitting image of his mother, but wiser and kinder. Etienne was filled with love for him.

"Come, son," he murmured softly, ruffling his boy's hair. "Let's go home." Remus nodded, the words like music to his ears.

  
  
  



	4. Chapter Three: Les Garçons et L'Eté

  
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**Chapter Three**:** Les Garçons et L'Eté  
What happens**: This chapter focuses around Sirius's and Remus's developing friendship. Among other things, of course.**  
Main Characters**: Remus J. Lupin, Sirius Black  
**Subsidiary Characters**: James Potter, Lilly Evans, Peter Pettigrew; Professor Voldemort; Etienne Ibert  
**Couples You Will Find In This Fic (Whether You Like It Or Not)**: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin; James Potter/Lilly Evans; a hint or two of Lucius Malfoy/Severus Snape; other relationships of both a homosexual and heterosexual nature  
**Dedication**: This fic is dedicated to **Lins**, who continually **rekindles** my joy of **SiriusxRemus** whenever I am **losing** it.   
**This is**: **chapter two** of a **work in progress**. Like all my **works in progress**, it is possible that you will be **waiting** a **very long time** between **installments**, or they could come out **daily** in a **psychotic** and rather **frightening** fashion. **Do Not Worry**! Just take it **as it comes**, and feel free to send me **demanding fan mail **(all **demanding fan mail** should be sent to **IremusJLupin@aol.com**) if you feel you've been waiting **an egregiously long time**. **Demanding fan mail** is **annoying** sometimes, but on the whole it makes me feel **incredibly cool**. And **that's what it's all about**, right? **Oh yes**. And I am also **constantly updating** **chapters** that have already been **uploaded**, whenever I find a **hideous spelling error** or a **problem with grammar**. So check back **often**.  
**C&C**: is **demanded**. Or, you know, **desperately longed for**, in a rather **pathetic **sense. Just gimme some of that **good ol' fashioned R&R**, and let me know you actually do want to **see more of my work**.  
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**Chapter Three: Les Garçons et l'Eté  
**  
The summer passed too quickly for Etienne's liking.

It was true; Remus was a changed boy. He was stronger, and more alive, his once dulled eyes holding a hidden sparkle reminiscent of the days when they'd been back in France. He still spent most of his time in his room with a book, but he spoke more around Etienne, and didn't shy away from the outside world any longer. It wasn't that he'd ever been simply painfully shy -- it was that human contact terrified and revolted him, so he stayed inside at all times to avoid it Now, though Etienne could still see his obvious discomfort in a public situation, Remus could bite his lower lip and bear it.

Etienne saw how he missed the school, and his friends, and felt a lonely sinking in his chest to know he was no longer enough for his son's happiness. Then again, he knew somewhere he had never truly been enough, and that one term in Hogwarts had done more for Remus than two years with Etienne had. He could only spend as much time in the three summer months with Remus as was possible, and let him go to that unfamiliar world once more when the time came.

"Tell me about your friends," Etienne asked once, over a carry-out dinner. "I never got to meet them, only to hear about them from your letters."

"Oh," Remus murmured over his packet of fish and chips. "Which one do you  
want to know about?"

"Well," Etienne said, then found himself faltering, "there was a James-- and a Sirius" Remus's eyes lit up, and Etienne smiled just slightly underneath his mustache.

"James spends most of his time hanging around Lilly-- Lilly Evans," Remus explained. His lips twitched with the urge to speak about Sirius, but he waited for Etienne to question him again, not wanting to seem too eager.

"And Sirius?" Etienne asked, as if on cue.

"Sirius Black," Remus said softly.

"Yes."

"We met-- sort of before Hogwarts, even. On the platform. He punched Lucius Malfoy for me."

"My. Did he now."

"Yes. He says, it only makes sense that we had to be friends, after that."  
  
"Sounds sensible."

"I didn't think so, at first. I thought he was a bit-- you know. Un homme fou." Etienne's lips quirked up, salt-and-pepper mustache trembling. "But then-- we were friends-- and so, he was right, after all."

"He was, on the platform, that tall boy, with the long, dark hair?"

"Yes. That was him."

"Is that how all this business between you and Lucius Malfoy began?"

"Yes. I suppose so." Etienne nodded, satisfied. Remus ate his chips with a lonely look on his face. "Il est un bon homme, Sirius Black?"

"Oui, papa."

"Il ne dit pas les mensonges?" Remus laughed, softly and huskily.

"Non, papa. Il ne ment pas." Etienne joined in the laughter. He had never before laughed with his son over their fish and chips dinners. In fact, he had never once laughed like this with his son over anything. If he owed this change to Sirius Black - and he got the feeling he owed a lot of things to Sirius Black - then he would have to find a way to thank him properly, in the future.

"Perhaps," he suggested off-handedly, cleaning his glasses on the corner of his sleeve, "we could find him something when we pick up your school things at Diagon Alley?"

"Oh," Remus said, thinking of the satchel that sat by his bed and the chocolate wrapper he had, saved, tucked away safe inside it.

"What do you think?"

"Perhaps-- his birthday is in November, soon after we go back"

"Then it's settled," Etienne said firmly. It seemed to him he owed Sirius Black more than just a birthday present, or souvenir. He didn't mind.

"I wouldn't know what to get him."

"I'm sure we'll think of something." Remus had a dreamy, lost look on his face, his fish and chips forgotten completely. For a moment, Etienne wondered about this Sirius Black, and how his son quite obviously worshipped the very ground he walked on. He paused in a quick prayer to whoever it was who had guided the two of them thus far, that Sirius Black would treat Remus as the boy deserved. If Sirius Black should hurt him - then it would be he who would be needing prayer.

  
  
It was a nasty day. The wind whipped Sirius's long hair around his face, slapping and stinging his skin. Even his father's old raincoat didn't keep him warm, or even remotely dry. Still, he needed to think - and when Sirius needed to think, he came to the wharf by the river, and sat, and thought the hours away.

He was thinking of Remus.

He'd been thinking of Remus a lot lately, he realized, because he missed him, or because he would have thought of the right thing to say or do when Sirius grew bored. Little things like that. It was getting on his nerves, and he would have yelled at Remus for it, only he couldn't, because Remus wasn't there.

And that was the whole problem, in the first place.

"Your head in the clouds again, boy?" Michael Black sat down next to his brother, peering into his face to catch any flicker of recognition. Sirius pulled back, and then scowled half-heartedly at the older boy, puffing hair out of his eyes. He was annoyed at the interruption, yes, but he felt tired and drained. He'd been thinking for a long time about Remus's monthly disappearances, and it made him feel uncomfortable and unsettled just remembering the state his friend would be in, when he came back.

"I suppose so."

"You've kept it there for too long. It's time to come back to earth, Sirius."

"What, and be a real man?"

"Well," Michael smirked faintly, tucking his own knees against his chest as he settled in next to his brother, "something like that, yes."

"I've heard it enough times. I don't need to hear it again." Michael snorted softly.

"That's bull and you know it. We'll stop saying it once you start paying attention to it."

"You'll be waiting a while."

"I know We all have been." There was nothing but the sound of the rushing river and the wind, howling like a wolf through the trees. It had been a cold, gray summer, which had done nothing to improve Sirius's unusually somber mood. Remus had started making him think, about a whole lot of things he hadn't even paid attention to, before he met the other boy. It was going to either drive Sirius completely nuts or make him one of those really damn smart people, like Remus himself was. Another thing Sirius wanted to yell at him for, but couldn't.

"Mh."

"What've y'been thinking about, Sirius?"

"A lot of things."

"Like what?"

"Hogwarts."

"Ah." Michael ran his coarse, coal-stained fingers through his hair, and then dropped them to his lap, staring emotionlessly at the cracked, dark fingertips. "It isn't that y'don't like the school, is it? You could tell mum and da. They wouldn't mind."

"It isn't that."

"I'm serious, Sirius." Michael laughed humorlessly. "They'd let you get out. We'd always planned more for you than the mines, but if you wanted-"

"Don't be daft. I love it there. It's fantastic." He sighed wistfully, curling up into a tighter ball. The wind, howling like that, like a wolf stuck in a bear trap. It made him feel cornered, caught It made him ache for a freedom he'd never known, because he'd never needed it before.

"Then what, Sirius? What is it? We've all been-- we've all been worried for you! Or haven't you noticed."

"I have noticed. Don't be."

"It isn't that simple."

"Mh."

"Well?" Michael pressed, insisted, dark blue eyes flashing with their father's stubbornness. Sirius realized suddenly that Michael wasn't going away until Sirius told him something. Anything at all.

"I miss one of my friends there. That's all," he gave in at last, "so you don't have to worry about it, anymore."

"You've never been this way over a friend before."

"Well-- he's a good friend."

"Not James?"

"No. Not James." They were both silent for a while, Michael watching the water, Sirius watching his own knees. He felt like saying anymore would be a violation, somehow, of the sanctity of their friendship. His family had nothing to do with Hogwarts. His family - much as he loved them all - wasn't cultured enough, smart enough, even good enough, for Remus J. Lupin.

Funny, Sirius mused, I don't even know what the 'J.' stands for.

"Who, then?"

"Just a friend."

"You wouldn't be this way over just a friend."

"Well, I am." Sirius faltered. "I'm worried about him. He was- was kind of sick, last I saw him." It wasn't a total lie. And his voice sounded distressed enough for Michael to believe him. Hell, Sirius almost believed himself. He was a convincing actor; he always had been.

"Ah"

"Mh."

"Do you know if he's all right, then?"  
  
"Last I checked."

"Then why are you worried?" Sirius shrugged faintly, staring at his sneakers. There were holes in the toes, fraying through the fabric.

"I'm not," he muttered to his knees.

"You're lying," Michael said, and sighed. "At least it isn't school, then. I can tell mum and da they don't have to worry about that anymore."

"Could've told you that."

"Who is it?"

"What?"

"Who is it-- this friend you're worried about."

"Remus," Sirius mumbled, looking off to the side.

"Ah. The one you bought the bag for."

"Mm." Michael clapped a hand down on Sirius's shoulder in what he hoped was a reassuring gesture. Sirius remembered the way Remus would flinch at such touches, and tried his best not to shrug it off. After all, his brother was just trying. Remus himself probably wanted to push Sirius's hand off him more times than Sirius could remember having touched him.

It was just the privacy of the matter. Sirius wanted ­ wanted, more than anything ­ to be left alone to think and have his private thoughts. Michael meant well, but with his coarse hands and his rough voice, he was only intruding.

"You're worrying mum," Michael said finally. "That's all I'm here for. Cheer up. Let her bake you a pie. Something like that. Stop mooning about like a pregnant cow."

"I'll keep that advice in mind." Michael stood and stretched, and Sirius listened to his footsteps as he trotted down the makeshift wharf. It was good to be left alone. 

The wind whipped around the boy's form, making him seem smaller and more unimportant than he had ever before felt in his entire life.

The crowd at Platform 9 and 3/4 was not unfamiliar to Remus now. The throng was less foreign and less terrifying. The crush of people was intimidating but bearable. He didn't feel like running back to his father's side to hold his hand, as he had once.

Besides, he was too eager and excited to remember anything else but where he and Sirius had planned on meeting.

He stood on his toes, trying to get above the taller children, trying to see if he could catch sight of those blue eyes, and that bright grin. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. He saw the top of Lucius Malfoy's pale golden hair, and next to that, Severus Snape's slicked black ponytail. But Sirius was nowhere to be found.

At last, he decided upon just giving up, and sunk down dejectedly to sit on the edge of his suitcase. He rested his chin on his folded hands and stared out at the crowd sightlessly.

At any moment now, he decided, he would hear Sirius calling out his name, and another year would begin. Remus had full faith. He just had to wait for it to happen, and he was a patient boy. The other, nameless students in the crowd grouped and broke apart and regrouped again. Remus felt excluded, suddenly, and terribly alone. He had been the type of boy who had had a group to return to, but somehow, he'd lost the rest of the group.

"-- Remus." Remus stiffened. His back grew a little straighter. The wolf could smell Sirius on the air. Even the beast was excited.

"Sirius." Remus half turned. The bigger boy -- who had grown at least an inch since they'd last seen each other -- was standing there, once again blocking out the sun, his whole body at an awkward angle.

"Been waiting long?"

"Not really."

"You have been."

"All right." At that, Sirius broke out into a wide, relieved smile, taking a slow step forward. It was Remus, all right, in the understated flesh. Only Remus would say 'all right' to something like that.

"The car broke down on the way here. We had to push it through the mud." Sirius lifted one leg to show the muddy state of his sneaker and the hem of his jeans.

"I haven't been waiting long."

"Well, I have been."

"Hm?"

"All bloody summer." The tension between them cracked. Remus stood, looking sideways at the ground, until Sirius leaped forward and wrapped his arms around him, crushing him against his chest. Remus lifted his hands, and just clutched them tightly in Sirius's t-shirt. Sirius had a comforting scent that reminded Remus of hot chocolate in bed, and pie in the summer, and the river, and clean clothes. Remus smelled to Sirius's untrained nose of stuffy books, and a certain sweet smell that might have been apples. Sirius buried his face against Remus's soft hair and took in a deep breath, feeling the velvety locks against his cheek and tickling his nose. Remus took in slow breaths, his lips pressed against Sirius's long, silky-black hair. "Missed you, you stupid git."

"I missed you, too."

"You could have insulted me, or something, too."

"I didn't want to." Sirius tightened his arms suddenly, so that Remus made a little 'ooph' of surprise. All the air had suddenly left his lungs, and his stomach was rather uncomfortably compressed. Still, they were making up for three months of being separated. Two minutes of being unbearably close might not have been the way to do it, but it was surprisingly pleasant, once Remus got used to it.

"Always so mature."

"Yes."

"_Remus_." Sirius gave him a half-chiding, half-fond scowl, ruffling through his hair as he pulled back. "I'll stop-- you know. Crushing you, now."

"All right." His lips twitched faintly, tugged upwards. "I didn't mind it." Sirius nearly burst with pride.

"Oh."

"I missed you."

"You already said that."

"I know."

"Oh." Sirius stood on shaky feet. He didn't know what else he could, or what else he should say. Remus was bending over, picking up his suitcase. The way his hair fell over the left side of his face was particularly catching. The rusty, burnished gold had a particular way of shining just so in certain spots of sunlight. It was catching. Sirius felt his eyes resting for just-too-long on the other boy's hidden features. He knew that little wrinkle of strain would be forming on Remus's brow right about now, as he picked up his suitcase. "Here-- I'll carry that, onto the train."

"I've got it."

"It isn't any problem." Remus judged immediately that Sirius wanted to carry his suitcase for him, and though he felt rather foolish giving in to let his friend do something he himself was perfectly capable of, it was best to give in and keep Sirius happy.

"All right." Sirius leaned forward and grasped the handle of Remus's battered old suitcase, taking its weight onto himself. "Thank you."

"Like I said-- it isn't anything."

"Mm." Falling into step beside Sirius, Remus shoved his hands in his pockets, trying not to be always looking up into the taller boy's face. "You've grown. You've gotten taller." Sirius's lips were pulled into a great big grin, and he straightened so that he was taller still. Remus felt oddly dwarfed, but it was in the way he always felt just _small_ beside Sirius.

"Mm. Almost another inch and a half."

"I didn't grow at all."

"No, you didn't," Sirius murmured thoughtfully, looking down at him. Looking at him, again. "You'd better start telling your father to feed you more. You've lost weight, too."

"I hadn't noticed."

"No. You wouldn't have." They stepped onto the train and began to search for an empty car, Sirius dragging both suitcases behind him. "You were probably too busy reading. Am I right?"

"Of course." Sirius nodded firmly, satisfied, shoving their suitcases into the proper compartment, snagging an unoccupied section. It didn't seem like achingly long, dreary weeks had passed since he and Remus had last been together. It was like they had just stepped off the Hogwarts express, only to step right back on it again. Sirius flopped down in on seat and quickly put his muddy feet up on the seats across from him, forcing Remus to sit beside him.

"I'm sure whoever cleans the seats doesn't appreciate your feet there," Remus pointed out softly as he settled down beside his friend.

"Oh," Sirius muttered sheepishly, "right. Sorry." He took his feet down, slouching like an appropriate teenager, feeling very proud of himself.

"How was your summer?" Remus tried, after a few minutes of silence passed.

"Cold."

"Oh?"

"Bloody _freezing_," Sirius said, "so that it rained almost every day over break. Started to be sunny this morning."

"I'm sorry."

"Wasn't that bad," Sirius lied. It had matched his mood, at least, and while it hadn't helped to improve his spirits, it had at least justified them. "I built a boat for the river with Michael, and even went down into the mines a couple of times."

"That's-- I've heard that's dangerous," Remus murmured weakly. It was obviously the right thing to say, for Sirius began to inspect his knuckles in that way he had that signaled sudden and intense pride.

"It is," Sirius said, absently. "Mum had half a mind not to let me go."

"Really?"

"Really." He couldn't hold up the act of indifference much longer. His eyes flashed with excitement. "Nothing happened, after all, but it was bloody _dark_ there, you can barely see where your own self ends and the coal begins!" Sirius held out one hand. There were the remains of dark stains beneath the fingernails. "See?"

"Mm. Yes."

"Mum was bloody mad with anger when I got back, black as my name." Remus felt a sudden burst of longing. What he wouldn't have given, to have been there, at that moment.

"I bet you'd gone down in clothes she'd just washed."

"How'd you know?"

"Just a guess." He shrugged faintly, leaning over Sirius just slightly to look out the window. "Where are the others?" He felt the bigger boy wilt a bit beneath him.

"I dunno."

"Just wondering."

"Mh." Sirius frowned faintly at nothing in particular. The idea of James, Lilly and Peter hadn't crossed his mind for a solid week. It had been all Remus, all the time.  
But, naturally, the other boy hadn't thought that way. It only made sense. It crossed Remus's mind that, perhaps, he'd done something wrong, but he didn't know what it was, and couldn't even try to fix it. He looked worriedly to Sirius's face and then sat back, trying to relax for the rest of the trip. "Maybe they've missed the train."

"So long as you're on it." Remus nearly crossed his fingers in the hope that those words could fix it. Sirius blinked a little, eyes caught once more by Remus's face.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Just that-- just that I missed you, the most."

"Oh." Sirius's grin nearly split his face in two. "Oh," he said again, fidgeting faintly in his seat. "Well-- naturally-- you're the one I couldn't wait to see."

"I know." Sirius threw back his head and laughed, loud and strong enough to make Remus shiver.

"Only you," Sirius murmured wryly, "only you."

James, Lilly and Peter joined up with them once they got off the Hogwarts Express. As it turned out, they'd been in a completely different car altogether for the entire trip. Sirius was vaguely relieved they never showed up, but couldn't let anyone know it.

He and Remus talked about things, from the most important plans for the future to the littlest detail of their summer break: where they'd gone, who they'd met, what they'd done. Halfway through the conversation Remus had exclaimed softly, a look of shock, and then sudden terror, flickering over his face.

"Oh!" he cried out, and then, softer, "I forgot."

"What?" Sirius frowned at the look on Remus's face. "What is it?"

"I was shopping at Diagon Alley," Remus murmured, feeling his stomach twist in knots and his heart begin to pound, "and I-- bought you something-- for your birthday. Like-- you bought the bag, for me, for Christmas."

"If this is a 'thank you' gift--"

"No," Remus said hurriedly, "it's just for your birthday."

"All right," Sirius murmured warily, "what?" Remus dug into his pocket, pulling out a small wood box and offering it to his friend. 'Shy' didn't cover the panic he felt. 'Shy' wasn't nearly adequate enough a phrasing for why Remus was so terrified of doing this.

"Thanks," Sirius murmured, his face softening at the anxiety in Remus's usually warm eyes. He fumbled with the box top, and then managed to get it off, setting it beside him on the seat. He peered curiously inside, and felt his stomach drop through to his feet. "Oh, Remus," he whispered. He felt like a moron, but he found he was struck suddenly speechless.

"I thought you might like it," Remus said, miserably turning his head away, "only I wasn't sure what else to get you."

"I was looking at this when I came to Diagon Alley with my mum," Sirius breathed, "but she said I couldn't get it, it was too expensive and not on the list, and we 'can't afford things like that.'" Sirius reached into the box and tugged out a pendant on a strong leather cord, careful not to even smudge the glass with his fingerprints. "I can't believe you-- Remus..." Upon closer inspection, it was shown to be not a pendant, but a tiny bottle which held a liquid, shimmery white substance inside. They were on sale in all the best stores all over the place: bottles of Moonshine, they were called. They lit up when the moon was strong, and they could tell a friend from an enemy when commanded to.

"I wasn't sure," Remus repeated, helpless, bright red with pleasure and embarrassment.

"It's fantastic," Sirius went on, "you're bloody amazing." He undid the knot in the leather cord, and held it to Remus. "Well? Put it on me, I can't reach to tie it round back." Remus obeyed, managing somehow to keep his hands still as he did so. He brushed Sirius's hair away from his neck gently, and tied the leather in three tight, neat knots, letting the bottle of Moonshine dangle securely around his neck. 

"Do you like it?" he asked shyly, settling back, hands on his knees.

"I love it," Sirius answered truthfully. "I'll always wear it."

That was the sort of thing he couldn't say around James, certainly couldn't say in front of Lilly or Peter. That was the sort of moment he preferred to have his privacy for, if only because he could tell Remus preferred to have his privacy for it, too.

As they made their way to Hogwarts for the second time, Sirius felt confident with his friends, with Remus, beside him. The bottle of Moonshine dangled to where his ribcage began, right over his heart, and was hidden underneath his robes. As he walked, he could feel it bumping rhythmically against his chest, and he was reassured by its steadiness. Remus had given him this.

He _would_ always wear it. If it took never taking it off -- well, that's what he would do.

Their second year at Hogwarts was almost identical to the first. Crabbe and Goyle had both grown but so had James and Sirius. Lucius still clung to his everlasting grudge, Severus going along for the ride without any malevolence at all. The only difference Remus noted between his second year and his first were the new Gryffindor students that flooded the common room, and the sudden, quiet confidence he had acquired. He had lived through one year. Half the time, he'd even been top of his class. There was nothing he had to worry about with his curriculum. 

There was only the full moon, but he'd dealt with that his whole life. Nothing had changed. 

Sirius and he were partners for potions again, scraping past Voldemort's watchful eye by the skin of their teeth with only Remus's skill to save them. Sirius's idea of making a potion was still to throw whatever ingredients were on hand into the mix, and then duck for cover immediately afterwards. Remus had tried many times in their first year to explain the delicate measurements and precise nature required to make potions properly, and had at last given up, letting Sirius sit by and watch as Remus himself did the experiment correctly. 

Transfiguration was the one place Sirius truly excelled. Professor McGonagall, who knew the dark-haired boy as a troublemaker in the hallways and a sort of brute in Potions, never ceased to be amazed by the easy way he picked up the simpler spells she taught him, and soon began to tutor him privately on Thursday afternoons. Sirius then did what any normal boy would in his situation, promptly repeating to James, Peter and Remus all that he'd been told during his private lesson. 

One major difference between their second and first year was James's and Sirius's sudden obsession with the game of Quidditch. James had been given, for his birthday, the newest model of the Nimbus, and both he and Sirius spent at least half their waking hours out on the Quidditch field with it. Peter, Lilly and Remus tagged along to watch like faithful, dutiful friends, but they themselves had no skill at the game, and stuck to being the audience. 

On a broomstick, James was quite obviously the more skilled, but for all that Sirius lacked real talent he made up in sheer speed and spirit. James could find the ball faster, but Sirius himself could get to it in the blink of an eye. 

Remus found himself spending many afternoons and early mornings sitting in the stands with a book, half paying attention to the game, half paying attention to the words. Sometimes, he'd be drawn so much into the game that he'd cheer himself hoarse, and suffer for such unruliness the next morning. Still, James had Lilly in the sidelines to cheer him on, and Remus had figured that it was only fair for Sirius to have him. Between them, they made enough noise for a full-blown Quidditch game, which pleased both Sirius and James to no end. 

Remus prided himself on being yet more devoted to the game than even Lilly herself was. Come rain or shine, when Sirius and James took up their brooms Remus would take up his book and perhaps an umbrella, and follow them out to the field. His only other choices for pastimes were to work alone or to read alone, and he really did prefer watching the other two boys do what they were good at to curling up in bed around his book and feeling painfully . Sometimes, he wished he could join in, but the idea of swooping through the air on a broom made him feel sick. A wolf's paws belonged on the ground. For the same reason, Remus had never enjoyed boat rides, and the one time he'd been on a plane he'd sat, huddled into a tiny ball, with shivers running fiercely through him. No, Quidditch was for Sirius and James, and Remus would be satisfied with simply watching. 

At Christmas break Remus once again stayed behind This time, however, Peter went back to visit with his family, and Sirius chose to stay behind with Remus. 

"Didn't like the idea of leaving you here all alone," he explained in an awkward mumble, which told Remus he didn't want to talk about it further. Remus took this as a sudden stroke of impossibly good luck, and left it at that. 

They ate like kings in the all but deserted Great Hall, and retired each night to their beds, where they had the entire room to themselves. On the first night, Sirius had questioned Remus about the book he read, and the idea of Remus reading to the older boy was adopted. 

Sirius flopped himself down comfortably on his back on the couch in the Common Room, his head resting in Remus's lap. Once, such a close proximity to another body would have made Remus recoil in disgust and fear. Now, he barely flinched, letting one hand absently stroke Sirius's silky hair as the other turned the pages of the book. 

"Edmond took the old man in his arms," Remus read softly, his voice light and warm, "and laid him on the bed. 

" 'And now, my dear friend,' said Faria, 'sole consolation of my wretched existence,--you whom Heaven gave me somewhat late, but still gave me, a priceless gift, and for which I am most grateful, at the moment of separating from you for ever, I wish you all the happiness and all the prosperity you so well deserve. My son, I bless thee!' 

"The young man cast himself on his knees, leaning his head against the old man's bed," Remus went on. Sirius was enthralled by his voice. It was why he had suggested the reading in the first place. It had seemed like one of the more exciting stories that Remus read, so he didn't mind sitting through it. Now, though, he was enraptured, listening to every word with bated breath. 

Remus's hand, too, was in his hair. Remus had small, soft fingers, with none of the harsh calluses his mum or da had from years of hard work. It felt nice, the way he petted him, like he might a cat or a dog. Sirius had to bite his lip and tense his body to keep down the urge to purr. 

He didn't know how to purr, but the last thing he needed was to do it unselfconsciously. 

" 'Listen, now, to what I say in this my dying moment. The treasure of the Spadas exists. God grants me that there no longer exists for me distance or obstacle. I see it in the depths of the inner cavern. My eyes pierce the inmost recesses of the earth, and are dazzled at the sight of so much riches. If you do escape, remember that the poor abbe, whom all the world called mad, was not so. Hasten to Monte Cristo - avail yourself of the fortune - for you have indeed suffered long enough.'" 

Sirius shivered. A strange sort of passion was laced into Remus's voice. As Sirius looked up into his friend's eyes he saw they were lost and golden, faraway and different, as if he were looking into another time and another place. It made Sirius feel hungry, to see what Remus's eyes saw, and know what he knew. Caught up in how Remus looked, Sirius was shocked back to the story as Remus's voice grew louder, stronger, with the same fervor that filled his eyes: 

" 'Monte Cristo! forget not Monte Cristo!' 

"And he fell back in his bed." Another shiver ran down the center of Sirius's spine, like fingers against his vertebrae. Remus was stronger than people knew. It made Sirius feel oddly powerful, to know this side of his friend that no one else knew. Sirius listened to Remus's voice tell of Edmond Dantes's escape with his breaths catching painfully in his throat and his heart beating. 

The story itself was beautiful and exciting, though he'd never admit to thinking so highly of what was considered 'old literature.'

It was listening to Remus tell it that made it fantastic.

"It was six o'clock in the morning, the dawn was just breaking, and its weak ray came into the dungeon, and paled the ineffectual light of the lamp. Singular shadows passed over the countenance of the dead man, which at times gave it the appearance of life. Whilst this struggle between day and night lasted, Dantes still doubted; but as soon as the daylight gained the pre-eminence, he saw that he was alone with a corpse. 

"Then an invincible and extreme terror seized upon him, and he dared not again press the hand that hung out of bed, he dared no longer to gaze on those fixed and vacant eyes which he tried many times to close, but in vain - they opened again as soon as shut. He extinguished the lamp, carefully concealed it, and then went away, closing as well as he could the entrance to the secret passage by the large stone as he descended." 

Sirius liked the idea of secret passages. He intended upon discovering as many as he could, starting within the winding halls of Hogwarts, and then taking his work on to the rest of the world. 

Again, Sirius found his mind wandering It was aimless, he knew, but Remus's voice had that effect on him. It made him start to wonder, and when he wondered, he analyzed.

He'd kissed Ellen Abbott thirteen times in the past four months. 

She'd counted and told him before she went away on break. She told him she would miss him, and think about him every day. It was flattering, and a little frightening, too. Ellen Abbott was the prettiest girl in the entire school, or, at least, that was what all the boys said. Just two weeks ago, she'd caused a fight between a Slytherin third year and a Ravenclaw second year that had nearly gotten the two boys involved expelled.   
  
Ellen Abbott was the prettiest girl in the entire school, or at least thought to be, and that was what counted, and Sirius had kissed her thirteen times in the past four months.

It was vaguely troubling to Sirius that he felt he should be more excited about this than he actually was. Sure, he was proud of it, and sure, he'd tell anyone who'd listen that Ellen Abbott had counted how many times he'd kissed her. Other than that, though, he wasn't quite sure what a proper response to such a bit of information was. Maybe, Sirius realized suddenly, the fact that he thought of this as a number, a statistic, a 'bit of information,' was the whole problem entirely. 

That left him with a problem, and no way to fix it. 

Ellen Abbott was a pretty girl. A very pretty girl, in fact, with dark brown curls and these huge sea-green eyes with eyelashes that could bat a cow to death. For a thirteen-year-old, she was definitely very mature, and very well-endowed. Sirius had been told more often than not since they'd gotten together that he was the luckiest bastard the school had ever seen. 

Sirius was inclined to agree, but not on the account of Ellen Abbott. Rather, he would have said yes to it no matter what because right now, his head was in Remus's lap, and Remus was petting his hair in an absent and utterly perfect manner. Everything smelled of Remus and sounded like Remus and felt like Remus. Sirius allowed his mind to, for just one second, wonder how it would taste, were it tasting like Remus. 

Immediately, he thought of Ellen Abbott, and how she tasted -- sort of like fresh caramels -- and he could have kicked himself for thinking such things about Remus, of all people. 

Still, he just couldn't keep his mind from wandering. Whenever he was with Ellen, it happened, too, only it was on a more drastic scale. Every one of those thirteen times he was kissing Ellen Abbott, with his hands in her hair, he was thinking about his best friend, and how Remus's hair was a thousand times softer and nicer than Ellen's. Every one of their fifteen dates, when Ellen had rattled on about some class or some girl or something wholly unimportant, Sirius had found himself acutely missing the way Remus talked, and all the things he talked about. Did Ellen Abbott read a lot? Sirius didn't even know. He did know that she hated Maeve Zabini more than any of the greater known evils. But that sort of thing just bored him to death. 

So that was it, then, he decided. Ellen was all right, as people went, even as girls went. She was just wholly uninteresting. She was just bloody dull. 

"Alone! he was alone again! again relapsed into silence! he found himself once again in the presence of nothingness! 

"Alone! no longer to see,-- no longer to hear the voice of the only human being who attached him to life! Was it not better, like Faria, to seek the presence of his Maker and learn the enigma of life at the risk of passing through the mournful gate of intense suffering? 

"The idea of suicide, driven away by his friend, and forgotten in his presence whilst living, arose like a phantom before him in presence of his dead body. 

" 'If I could die,' he said, 'I should go where he goes, and should assuredly find him again. But how to die? It is very easy,' he continued, with a smile of bitterness; 'I will remain here, rush on the first person that opens the door, will strange him, and then they will guillotine me.'" 

Sirius scowled faintly. He didn't like such words coming to him from that voice; it wasn't proper. It wasn't, at least, what he was used to hearing. 

At least it had shocked him out of the dangerous pathways of his thoughts, and had jolted him back into the real world. Or, the world that didn't involve Ellen Abbott. The world of Christmas break. 

"But as it happens," Remus continued, "that in excessive griefs, as in great tempests, the abyss is found between the tops of the loftiest waves, Dantes recoiled from the idea of this infamous death, and passed suddenly from despair to an ardent desire for life and liberty. 

" 'Die! oh no,' he exclaimed, 'not die now, after having lived and suffered so long and so much! Die! yes, had I died years since; but now it would be indeed to give way to my bitter destiny. No, I desire to live, I desire to struggle to the very last, I wish to reconquer the happiness of which I have been deprived. Before I die, I must not forget that I have my executioners to punish, and, perhaps, too, who knows, some friends to reward. Yet they will forget me here, and I shall die in my dungeon like Faria.'" Remus licked his lips. Sirius felt his legs tense beneath his head. He frowned. 

"'S crazy," Sirius muttered faintly, feeling suddenly uncomfortable, "wanting to kill himself, even though he got to live." 

"Live for what?" 

"What do you mean? Just- y'know! Live." 

"Being alive isn't entirely wonderful, sometimes." 

"But at least you _are_. Alive." Remus's lips curved into a haunting smile. Sirius watched the way it spread over his face and features, and felt something cold slide itself against his heart. 

"Sometimes," Remus said softly, "that's not preferable to living." 

"You've-" Sirius hesitated. "You've never felt like that?" 

"Do you mean, have I ever wanted to die?" Remus gave him a direct look. It was hard not to look away. 

"Well-- yes, I suppose that's what I mean." 

"Yes." Sirius sat up instantly, their faces brought close. 

"You- what?!" 

"I've wanted to die, before." 

"When?" Sirius knew he was getting too personal, yet asking these questions too impersonally. He couldn't help the sudden fear that threatened to engulf his heart. He couldn't stop the questions from coming out angry and accusatory. 

"Do you want specific times and dates?" Sirius's face went white. 

"That's not what I'm asking," he said, "I'm sorry if it seems that way." Suddenly he felt angry, his anger justified. The very idea of Remus, not wanting to live, not feeling as if life were worth living, offended Sirius to the core of him. He knew he was being selfish. He didn't care. What gave Remus the right not to feel as firmly attached to life as Sirius did? What gave Remus the right to understand these things, no doubt better than Sirius ever could? 

"It does seem that way. But I know it's not." Remus slipped the cloth bookmark between the book's old pages and let it drop shut softly. He was watching the movements of his hands intently. Sirius saw his friend as a boy who went through life thinking it was just 'all right,' saying things were just 'all right.' Where was that secret passion that Sirius knew and admired? Where was the part of Remus that wasn't just Sirius's friend, but the being Sirius was in awe of? 

The anger twisting Sirius's gut suddenly morphed into something cold and heavy. He wasn't angry at Remus. It wasn't Remus's fault. What he was angry at now was what had made Remus this way, whatever had caused him to feel like his own life wasn't worth the effort. 

"It was when my mother died," Remus said softly, unexpectedly. Sirius's eyes widened as the anger faded, leaving just a shadow of emotion in his chest. He felt embarrassed and foolish and young. Something in him ached with how raw he'd been rubbed. 

"Remus," Sirius began helplessly, "I'm sorry." 

"It doesn't matter," Remus said softly. His eyes looked odd, seeing that distant something Sirius never would. "Je suis. Comme Dantes." 

"That wasn't English," Sirius muttered, feeling stupid and therefore getting angry. 

"No. It was French." 

"What did you say?" 

"I said, I am. Like Dantes." 

"Oh." 

"Should I keep reading?" 

"All right." 

Remus was, as always, a mystery. That was another one of Ellen Abbott's flaws. There were no layers to her. She was nothing like a puzzle. Plus, she didn't know French, and the language was beautiful, if not completely foreign, to Sirius's ears. 

"As he said this, he remained motionless, his eyes fixed like a man struck with a sudden idea, but whom this idea fills with amazement. Suddenly he rose, lifted his hand to his brow as if his brain were giddy, paced twice or thrice round his chamber, and then paused abruptly at the bed." 

_Je suis_, Sirius repeated in his head, _comme Dantes_. 

" 'Ah! ah!' he muttered, 'who inspires me with this thought? Is that thou, gracious God? Since none but the dead pass freely from this dungeon, let me assume the place of the dead!'" Remus voice had grown soft, fascinated with his own reading. Sirius felt excluded and lost, wanting to live and eat and drink and breathe language like his friend did, and knowing he could not. 

_Je suis_, Sirius told himself again, so he wouldn't forget, _comme Dantes._

I am. Like Dantes. 

Not 'I am like Dantes.' 

Just 'I am. Like Dantes.' 

"Without giving himself time to reconsider his decision, and, indeed, that he might not allow his thoughts to be distracted from his desperate resolution, he bent over the appalling sack, opened it with the knife which Faria had made, drew the corpse from the sack, and transported it along the gallery to his own chamber, laid it on his couch, passed round its head the rag he wore at night round his own, covered it with his counterpane, once again kissed the ice-cold brow, and tried vainly to close the resisting eyes which glared horrible, turned the head towards the wall, so that the gaoler might, when he brought his evening meal, believe that he was asleep, as was his frequent custom; returned along the gallery, threw the bed against the wall, returned to the other cell, took from the hiding place the needle and thread, flung off his rags that they might feel naked flesh only beneath the coarse sackcloth, and getting inside the sack, placed himself in the posture in which the dead body had been laid, and sewed up the mouth of the sack withinside." 

Sirius had lost track of that ambling sentence a few words in, but he was still listening hard, now, as he sensed that something important was about to happen. 

"The beating of his heart might have been heard if by any mischance the gaolers had entered at that moment." 

Sirius sighed softly. He had settled himself back against Remus's lap, his ear pressed up against the boy's hipbone. He could feel Remus's stomach as it grumbled in a familiar and steady rhythm. His eyes drooped shut and he yawned softly, turning to bury his face against Remus's stomach. 

"Sirius." 

"Mm?" 

"What are you doing?" 

"It feels comfortable." His words were muffled against Remus's robes. The smaller boy was warm, his body making a rather decent pillow, despite how thin it was. 

"Oh" 

"Keep reading. You've just gotten to a really good part." 

"All right." 

_Je suis_, Remus's voice repeated, far-away, in Sirius's head, _comme Dantes_. 

But Remus wasn't anything like Dantes, Sirius mused. They had both talked about that when they'd first started the book. Remus had said quite plainly, 'Dantes reminds me of you, Sirius.' And Sirius had filled with pride as he realized that meant Remus thought he was like the hero of one of his favorite books. 

So, Remus wasn't anything at all like Dantes.

Sirius himself was.   
  


Another time, in the late afternoon, they took a walk together in the freshly fallen snow. Remus looked over his shoulder every minute at the footprints they left in the glistening white. 

"Why do you keep looking behind us, like that?'' Sirius asked him, laughing softly. He had eaten a big lunch, and was feeling particularly cheerful. He hadn't thought about Ellen Abbott in four days, and the sun was burning brightly in the sky. 

"To see our footprints." 

"Why do you want to do a crazy thing like that?" Remus didn't respond, but took hold of his friend's shoulders, turning him around. Behind them was a long stretch of the tracks they had made, side by side. It was obvious to see that Remus's gait was shorter and hurried to keep up with Sirius's long strides. It was like, Sirius thought, seeing the both of them outlined in the crisp air and the shimmering snow. "Oh," he said. Remus wiggled his snub nose a bit. It was pink in the cold. 

"You see?" 

"Yes." 

"C'mon." Remus shoved his gloved hands into the folds of his robe, fending off a shiver. They trotted along side by side for a few minutes of silence, and then stopped at their destined spot, a tree Sirius and James liked to climb in the summer. Now, the branches were covered in that powdery white, drooping low with their burdens. 

"The world seems so bloody different," Sirius murmured softly, falling still. The crisp air made him feel acutely aware of Remus beside him. Their breaths puffed up and condensed into little swirls on the air, another marking of where they'd been. Remus shivered again, and Sirius frowned. "Cold?" 

"It's all right." 

"But you are." And it was no surprise - Remus's robes were so threadbare, it was amazing he hadn't frozen to death, already. Rolling his eyes a bit, Sirius took a step backward to stand facing his friend's back. A moment later, Remus felt Sirius's arms wrap around him from behind. He tensed at the contact, then relaxed. Sirius was very warm, and oddly comfortably. Remus felt himself leaning back against Sirius's chest, the cold kept easily at bay by Sirius's presence. 

"Thank you. That is better." 

"Mh." Sirius had his head bowed over Remus's shoulder, his breath warm against Remus's bright pink ear. "You still feel cold, to me." Remus had no answer for that. He tilted his head to the side so Sirius's mouth was closer to his ear. Every time he breathed, it was a little burst of relief from the stinging chill of the frost-hung air. He didn't know how this idea had gotten into Sirius's head, but he liked it whole-heartedly. "Before," Sirius said after a long while, breaking the comfortable silence, "when were talking about living and dying-- you never really answered my question." 

"I told you," Remus said hollowly, "when my mother died, I wish I had gone with her." 

"Gone with her-- you mean, died with her." 

"She went into the forest, and I wish I had gone with her." 

"She died in the forest?" 

"Yes." "Oh. I see." He didn't. He tried to, but Remus wouldn't let him. If Sirius really did understand, he wouldn't have been standing there, holding Remus so close to his chest

"There've been a few other times, but they're not important." 

"Of course they are! They haven't," Sirius went on, shakily, "been since you've come to Hogwarts, have they?" 

"No. They haven't." Sirius breathed out a sigh of relief. It was hot against Remus's ear. 

"Good," Sirius said. "That's been a while, then." 

"Yes." 

"I'm sorry," Sirius said softly, "about your mum. What was she like?" 

"She was beautiful," Remus remembered aloud. "She used to sing to me." 

"What sort of songs?" 

"French songs. Arias." 

"Arias?" 

"They were wonderful." 

"Not lullabies, or anything?" 

"Not that I remember." Sirius laughed softly, not at him, but with the world. It was the laugh of Sirius's that Remus liked the most. He understood some great, wonderful joke, that made everything bright. 

It was a laugh like Dalila used to have, when bouncing Remus on her knee. Remus could recall it, in the recesses of his mind, and sometimes he longed to hear it again, with his hungry wolf's hair. Most of all, he wished he could be the sort of person who, connected with the veins and the roots in the earth, could throw back their head and laugh that way, up to the sky. He knew that as Sirius laughed, his blue eyes would sparkle. They wouldn't burn, but they'd be warm. He could feel a few strands of Sirius' hair tickling his ear, and he shifted from one foot to the other. 

"Well," Sirius said, "how did they go?" Remus's brow furrowed in memory. The words came to him surprisingly easily. They were like old friends, he and his mother's songs. 

"Mon coeur s'ouvre a ta voix," Remus murmured softly, "comme s'ouvrent les fleurs" 

"That was lovely What's it mean?" 

"My heart unfurls at your voice as the flowers unfurl." 

"Sing it." 

"I couldn't." 

"Sing it!" 

"Right here? In the middle of the snow?"

"Where else?" Sirius laughed again, arms tightening around his waist. "Go on, Remus. Sing for me?" Remus's heart leaped lightly in his chest. He couldn't refuse him, not when he asked that way. 

"All right," he said, and threw his head back against Sirius shoulders. His eyes closed, and he imagined the sky opening up before him, the stars shooting from his fingertips. "_Mon couer s'ouvre a ta voix comme s'ouvrent les fleurs, aux basiers de l'aurore - mais, ô mon bienaimé, pour mieux séchers mes pleurs, que ta voix parle encore_!" Sirius felt something tighten in his gut as Remus's voice echoed, rich and full with passion for life - and for love, too, he imagined - over the snow-covered ground, up to the heavens. 

"You stopped," he whispered breathlessly against Remus's cheek. "Why?" 

"I forgot the words," Remus said. 

"Who cares about the words? Don't stop." Remus licked his lips, scrabbling desperately for what came next. 

"_Dis moi qu'a Dalila tu reviens pourpour jamais_," he went on, voice once again flowing like blood through Sirius's veins, "_redis a maa ma tendresse, les serments d'autre foisces serments que j'aimais! Ah! réponds a ma tendresse, ver-se-moi, ver-se-moi, l'ivresse! Réponds a ma tendresse, réponds a ma tendresse, ver-se-moi, ver-se-moi, l'ivresse_!" Again, Remus stopped. Sirius felt an ache well up from the bottom of his chest. "Next- next comes my favorite part," he whispered. Sirius held him tighter. 

"Sing," he said. 

"_Ainsi qu'on voit des blés les épis onduler sous la brise légere, ainsi frémit mon coeur, prêt a se consoler,a ta voix qui m'est chere! La fleche est moins rapide a porter le trépas, que ne l'est ton amante a voler dans tes bras! A voler dans tes bras_!" He swallowed thickly, feeling his body shake. Sirius must have felt it, too, for he tightened his arms once more. Remus heard the breath catch raggedly in his throat. He wondered if this was what his father felt, when he heard his mother sing for the first time. 

But Etienne never spoke about Dalila. 

"_Ah! réponds a ma tendresse, ver-se-moi, ver-se-moi, l'ivresse! Réponds a ma tendresse, réponds a ma tendresse -- ah! ver-se-moi, ver-se-moi, l'ivresse -- Samson! Samson! je t'aime_!" 

"That last part," Sirius asked, his voice low, "what did you say?" 

"It's a song to Samson," Remus explained, feeling breathless. "Dalila sings it to him - the last part is 'Samson, Samson, I love you.'" 

"I thought so," Sirius said. "How do you say it? _Je_" 

"Je t'aime," Remus said. 

"Je t'aime," Sirius repeated. 

"Right." 

"You never told me you could sing, like that." 

"I never knew I could sing, like that. I've never sung, before." Sirius cradled Remus closer, trying to keep the words fresh in his mind, but losing one even as he caught another. All he remembered was how Remus had said those last two words: je t'aime. 

"I don't believe you." 

"It's the truth. Whether you believe it or not is up to you." 

"All right, all right, I believe you. You don't lie, anyway." Remus ducked his head down. He felt drained. His heart felt like it was beating too fast. When he had been singing, the sky and the snow and everything in between had belonged to him. His feet, planted firmly on the ground, had felt it pulse to the rhythm of his own heartbeat. It had been impossible, but it had happened. 

He had loved it. 

After that day Sirius realized he had a problem. How big the problem became depended on how soon he could talk it through with James, and how soon he could talk it through with James depended on how long it was until Christmas Break ended. He couldn't ask Remus's advice, though Remus was the smartest and closest of his friends.

It was agonizing, the way the days dragged by. He knew Remus could sense his impatience, and he tried not to show it. Still, the other boy was terribly perceptive. Sirius was a good actor, but he couldn't outsmart Remus Lupin.

No one could.

They exchanged gifts on Christmas morning, and ate chocolate for breakfast in the silent Common Room. Sirius could still spend the best times of his life with the smaller boy, just laughing with him, hearing him talk, listening to him read.

But Sirius needed to talk to James.

When James at last returned, along with the crowd of students coming back from their vacations, Sirius realized suddenly that it would be close to impossible to get him alone for at least a few days. Sirius had never been a patient person. His patience was running so thin it could have been the fabric of Remus's rattiest robe. On edge and miserable, the first few days after Christmas Break were like Hell for Sirius Black. He was jumpy whenever anyone spoke to him, and the only person who could get anywhere near him was Remus, even though his presence seemed to put Sirius even more on edge. Anyone else just pushed him off.

Finally, after what seemed like an impossibly long time of waiting for James Potter to realize Sirius was desperately trying to get him alone, Sirius had to wait no longer. Remus and Lilly had stayed behind late in potions for their after-class tutoring, one-on-two with Professor Voldemort. Peter rarely got in anyone's way, and he'd kept clear of Sirius, since he'd gotten edgy.

"James?" Sirius askes, as they trotted down the hall. "D'you have a minute?"

"Maybe," James said, grinning, "why?"

"I need to talk to you," Sirius said.

"Uh oh. Is it serious? Fantastic. Talk away." Sirius could have socked him one, but he didn't have the time. Plus he figured James wouldn't be too keen on listening to him if Sirius had just slugged him in the face.

"You see," Sirius said, "it's about Ellen." A familiar, James-like smirk played over Sirius's friend's face.

"And _what_ about her, may I ask?"

"Not that. Get that look of your face."

"Fine, fine. Continue."

"I just-- I don't think I like her."

"Are you kidding me?" James's bright blue eyes were round and incredulous. "This has to be some sort of joke. This is _Ellen Abbott_ we're talking about, here. _Everyone_ likes her." Sirius rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably.

"Well, I mean, she's all_ right_," he muttered.

"She's a little more than all _right_."

"No," Sirius assured him, "she's just all right. She's-- nothing. Sort of-- normal. There's nothing remotely _anything_ about her. But do you know? Since she came back from Christmas Break, she's had all these _plans_. Like where we're going to go tomorrow, and the day after that, and every Friday for twenty years into the bloody _future_."

"She likes you," James said, "is that so terrifying?"

"Yes!" Sirius snarled. James was being thick. Again. "Not only is it terrifying, but it's the most bloody boring experience of my life!"

"This is _Ellen Abbott_ we're talking about, Sirius!"

"I _know_ who it is we're talking about!" Sirius felt like screaming, but managed to keep his voice to a soft roar. "I'm the one who brought it up in the _first_ place!"

"You've gone mad," James said.

"I have _not_," Sirius hissed.

"Look at you, you're frothing at the mouth like a dog gone daft!"

"I am not! James, I came to you with a serious problem--"

"--you're right! Insanity is serious!"

"--and you're not helping!" Sirius eyes narrowed in anger. James realized suddenly his friend was giving him The Look. He sobered just slightly, enough to stop Sirius from killing him.

"Sorry," James mumbled, "I'll stop. Now-- for the record-- just repeat your problem, again?"

"Ellen Abbott," Sirius said flatly, "bores the bloody hell out of me."

"So." James felt helpless. "Tell her?"

"I mean-- I can't. She really-- she really _likes_ me."

"No kidding." James wanted to kick him. He didn't, because Sirius was bigger and stronger than he himself was, but oh, did he want to. "You're real, uhm, chivalrous, Sirius."

"So I can't just tell her to bugger off."

"How kind of you."

"_James_." 

"Right, right, I'm stopping, I'm stopping. I don't know what you want me to _say_."

"Tell me what to do!" Sirius cast about, desperate for advice he could hold onto, words he could make sense of. It didn't serve his cause that James didn't really want to help, either. "I'm with bloody Ellen Abbott and all I can think about is how she's not bloody _Remus_." There was silence. It felt good, at least, to get that sort of thing off his chest, but Sirius got the feeling he shouldn't have said so much, so fast. He swallowed, and ran his fingers through his hair, and tried not to let his stomach drop down into his shoes.

"Wait," James said, brow furrowing, "let me get this straight: the reason you don't like Ellen Abbott is because you like Remus more?" Sirius licked his lips and coughed softly. It wouldn't do to dodge this question or answer it half-heartedly. He either had to tell the truth or come up with a really good lie.

"Yes," he said finally, wincing. "Sort of. No. --Yes."

"So it's yes, then?"

"Yes." James nodded thoughtfully.

"Sirius," he said at last, "you've got a problem, and his name is Remus Lupin."

"Yes." Sirius was aware of the fact that James was smiling, lips curving knowingly upwards. He frowned, not liking the look. It meant James understood something, or knew something, that Sirius didn't. "What? What's that look for?"

"Of all the boys in the school, Sirius,"James murmured mournfully, "Ellen Abbott had to bloody pick _you_."

"I know," Sirius said, feeling helpless. "You've got to help me."

"I'll do what I can," James sighed, "but I can only do so much." 

Remus and Lilly chose that moment to step out of Potions, Voldemort at their heels, and James waved to them, darting a nervous glance back to Sirius. But the boy seemed perfectly fine as he beckoned Remus over. They were still best of friends. It didn't seem to bother Sirius one bit that he'd just said what he'd said. James had to wonder if his friend was a bit thick in the head, or just so completely at ease with himself that nothing really mattered to him.

As they walked to Transfiguration, James felt a pang of jealousy. Sirius Black, ever-confident and ever-strong, ever getting the girl and ever not knowing what to do with her. It was the story of James's life.

And then Lilly said something, and James said something back, and the two of them laughed, and James realized he didn't want to change places with the charming Sirius Black for all the gold in Gringotts.

Remus threw back his head and howled up to the moon. The sound that came out wasn't from the wolf but from his own, human lungs. It was like a song, only there were no comforting words to it, and no tune. It was note-less and key less, and it ached to let it out.

Remus knew immediately that he was dreaming.

The great black body that haunted, or perhaps guarded, his dreams, was by his side once more. A nose nuzzled his side, which was suddenly his flank. He felt heavier, furrier. The full moon had been the night before, and this was the post change dream, where he was both, and he was neither. He felt a hand, maybe a paw, on his stomach. He threw his head back again. It was not to woo the moon but to let the great black creature have access to his neck.

He didn't want to dominate.

He just wanted to sing.

"Remus."

He parted his lips. Someone was talking to him and it was jarring to his senses. Everything had been quiet and low, to the thrum of the earth's core. His ears were suddenly, painfully sensitive to every disturbance in the air.

"Remus?"

He felt like baring his fangs, and realized that he didn't have any. There were only teeth in his mouth. His claws wavered, undecided, before they chose to become soft fingers again.

It took a great effort, but Remus opened his eyes. Sirius was sitting on the edge of his bed, peering down into his face while wearing a wonderfully nervous, worried expression.

"Are you all right?"

Remus closed his eyes again and grimaced. His throat felt sore. He didn't trust himself to speak, yet. He chose to nod slowly, and he could feel Sirius relax.

"Good." There were hands in Remus's hair. It took him a moment to realize they were Sirius's hands, the hands of a miner's son. He didn't know why he was thinking these things at such a late hour -- of course he knew how late it was, for he could feel the moon high up in the velvet sky. Sirius shifted closer, his rough hands moving over Remus's cheek. "I was worried."

"You're always worried." His voice sounded as rough as Sirius's hands, but passable. Sirius's fingers travelled around to the back of Remus's neck, rubbing the top vertebrae.

"Do you blame me?"

"A little."

Sirius had remarkable hands. They didn't feel rough anymore, just warm and powerful.

"I woke you. I'm sorry. Go back to sleep."

"All right," Remus acquiesced. Sirius was brushing the hair out of his eyes and off his forehead. How long had it been since he last had a haircut? Two years, at the least. No, longer than that. More than four years, now. His last one had been given to him by his mother's hands.

He was small, and he sat in the bathtub naked, his hair wet and clinging to his cheeks and neck.

"Hold still," Dalila Lupin said.

Only she didn't say that. She would never have said that. No, she had laughed, and sung to him in French, and he had joined in. He'd been sharp, but she didn't tell him. She let him open his mouth and throw his head back as she took the scissors away. Wet hair, severed from his head, stuck to his shoulders and pricked his soft skin.

"Samson!" he sang, "Samson!"

They finished the song together:

"Je t'aime!"

And then, he was in Sirius's arms, warm in the cold snow. Sirius was breathing hot puffs of friendly air on his ear. Remus threw his head back over one of Sirius's shoulders and sang to his friend,

"Je t'aime!"

"Je t'aime," said Sirius Black.

Remus sat up straight in bed, shaken at last from the strange dream. Sirius wasn't touching his face, and his hair was a mess. There was an uncomfortable knot in his stomach. He'd kicked all his covers off and became unpleasantly aware of how freezing he was immediately. With hands that shook he leaned down to pull the blankets up around his body, making a burrow underneath the quilt. That way, he was hidden from the world. That way, he was safe.

The bandage on his arm was scratching his skin. Sirius hadn't let that particular bandage go, asking him over and over what had happened to him, until Remus nearly snapped at him, and James and Lilly had to have a bit of a talk with Sirius. After a few words exchanged with James in secret, Sirius announced he was going to visit Ellen Abbott, and had promptly stormed out.

Remus suddenly understood, curled up in a ball of down comforter and pajamas, that he hated Ellen Abbott.

The only problem was: he didn't know _why_.

Voldemort folded his hands on his desk before him. "The world is changing," he said softly. He was smiling. "The world is changing and those who intend to change with it will inherit the power to rule it." Behind him were five or six faceless witches and wizards, draped in dark cloaks.

The whole room felt green.

Lucius Malfoy leaned forward a little in his seat, enthralled.

"There are some who are adverse to change. But it is inevitable, the only constant in this world. Things, people, and most importantly _times,_ change. It is those who embrace this change that prosper. Those who shun it, or close their eyes to it, are left behind. There is no place for them among our numbers." Voldemort leaned back in his chair, so that his whole face was cast in shadow. All that could be seen of it was his smile, and above that his eyes, like two glowing emeralds in the mere silhouette of his face.

It signaled the end of the meeting. There was the ghostly sound of clapping behind him, and Lucius, along with the rest of the students who had come to listen to Voldemort speak of the coming events, burst into muted cheers.

Not too loud, of course. The dungeon meetings were always kept hushed, so that they would not be discovered speaking of Voldemort's envisioned future on Hogwarts grounds. Lucius stepped into the quiet hall, Severus sticking to his side uncomfortably.

"He's _amazing_," Lucius breathed. Severus flickered dark eyes over his friend's pale face.

"Mm." Lucius got too excited,too quickly. Severus was used to it, and always kept quiet as he waited for it to pass.

"The way he talks-- and what he says-- he's _brilliant_. He's more than brilliant!"

Severus thought he was a bit of a madman.

"He's going to be the king of that new world," Lucius said.

Severus felt ill.

"I mean, after all," Lucius went on, "who else could do it better than he?"

Severus kept his eyes on his shoes and kept walking, nodding absently. 

"He does everything for himself. Doesn't trust anyone else."

Severus felt ill again. He felt that same, idiotic hero worship for Lucius that Lucius felt for Professor Voldemort. Personally, the man gave Severus the creeps. it was as if he had eyes everywhere, like a peacock's tale. He seemed nice enough, until you saw his face was smiling but his eyes were not.

"Next year, he said he'll begin. Next year, when the time is right."

Severus folded his arms over his chest and prayed to whomever he thought might be listening that Lucius would forget about Voldemort and his new world order in a month.

He didn't.

The phase didn't pass.

Severus had to tag along, or risk losing his friend forever.


	5. Chapter Four: Voistu Que J'ai Decouvert?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
**Chapter Four**:** Vois-tu Que J'ai Decouvert?  
What happens**: The second year ends; you see into the mind of Voldemort a little, as well as into the minds of all of Remus's friends. Sirius and Remus are both starting to understand what it is they're feeling for each other.  
**Main Characters**: Remus J. Lupin, Sirius Black  
**Subsidiary Characters**: James Potter, Lilly Evans, Peter Pettigrew; Severus Snape, Lucius Malfoy; Professor Voldemort, Professor McGonagall; Etienne Ibert  
**Couples You Will Find In This Fic (Whether You Like It Or Not)**: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin; James Potter/Lilly Evans; Severus wanting Remus's body; a hint or two of Lucius Malfoy/Severus Snape; other relationships of both a homosexual and heterosexual nature  
**Dedication**: This fic is dedicated to **Lins**, who continually **rekindles** my joy of **SiriusxRemus** whenever I am **losing** it.   
**This is**: **chapter four** of a **work in progress**. Like all my **works in progress**, it is possible that you will be **waiting** a **very long time** between **installments**, or they could come out **daily** in a **psychotic** and rather **frightening** fashion. **Do Not Worry**! Just take it **as it comes**, and feel free to send me **demanding fan mail **(all **demanding fan mail** should be sent to **IremusJLupin@aol.com**) if you feel you've been waiting **an egregiously long time**. **Demanding fan mail** is **annoying** sometimes, but on the whole it makes me feel **incredibly cool**. And **that's what it's all about**, right? **Oh yes**. And I am also **constantly updating** **chapters** that have already been **uploaded**, whenever I find a **hideous spelling error** or a **problem with grammar**. So check back **often**.  
**C&C**: is **demanded**. Or, you know, **desperately longed for**, in a rather **pathetic **sense. Just gimme some of that **good ol' fashioned R&R**, and let me know you actually do want to **see more of my work**.  
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**Chapter Four: Vois-tu Que J'ai Decouvert?**

After Potions Remus stayed late, as usual. The other second year Slytherins and Gryffindors filed out of the classroom, Sirius lagging behind for as long as he could manage before Ellen Abbott took his arm and escorted him cheerily out. Remus watched them go with an expressionless face, though his stomach writhed within him.

"Remus," Professor Voldemort said, beckoning to him and effectively shattering his thoughts.

"Mm," Remus said, "sorry."

"Quite all right." The professor smiled his unsettling smile. Remus sat across the desk from him. "I should be forever in your debt, after all you've taught Sirius Black." That part deep inside of Remus snarled.  
  
"I didn't think I'd made much of a difference."

"I haven't had to put out any fires in a month. I'm quite impressed." Professor Voldemort laughed softly, and the sound was far from companionable. It was trying to hard. Remus felt his skin crawl. He bowed his head like a wolf showing deference to a more powerful counterpart. Even with his eyes on the desk before him, he could feel that terrible smile spreading between them. He said nothing. Remus didn't want to be friends with this man. All he wanted was to be taught the lesson so he could get out as fast as he could. "Right," Voldemort said finally, coughing softly. He slid a book across the table between them. "Page forty three."

"All right." Remus flipped the book open. They had never worked out of it before. it was written in neat, precise script, but there was something to the writing that suggested an intelligence and a creativity Remus could admire. 

"These are some newer formulas," Voldemort was saying, "which will soon become quite controversial, if I read the tea leaves correctly." They both knew he had. Remus ignored his comment and turned obediently to the indicated potion. Page forty-three. Across the top, in that tight but friendly script, was written 'Wolfsbane Potion.'

Remus's hands stilled. The color drained from his face. He felt something clench around his stomach.

"Those nights of the full moon are hard, aren't they, Remus?" When the boy said nothing, Voldemort went on. "I thought as much. And so, I came up with this back at the beginning of the year. Just for you."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Remus said, lips pressed tightly together. Was he supposed to be flattered? Could he possibly be anything other than absolutely terrified?

"Come now," Voldemort murmured, "lying does not become you."

"I said, I don't know what you're talking about."

"I thought," Voldemort murmured encouragingly, bravely continuing as planned, "today we might try mixing that potion, and see how it worked next week. It is the full moon next week, isn't it?"

"You know when the full moon is."

"Ah. Yes. Well." Voldemort smiled thinly. "Why don't we give it a try, then?"

"How?" Remus lifted wary eyes to Voldemort's face, watching him as he would watch an enemy.

"You're not asking how the potion works."

"No."

"But, rather," Voldemort continued, "how I knew. Correct?"

"Yes."

"It was really quite simple," Voldemort said. "All I had to do was watch you, and check all the signs. You've been out every single afternoon before the full moon, and the entire day after each. And I saw your eyes, Remus." Voldemort leaned forward. His own eyes flashed an inhuman and unnatural green. "They are the eyes of a Beast of the Darkness." His words sent chills down Remus's spine. Had he not been frozen to his seat he would have pulled away, as far away as he could, from those slitted eyes before him. "So I've known since our very first class together what you are. I merely had to wait for the right opportunity to let you see how much I know about you."

"You've known..."

"For a very long time, yes." Voldemort pushed the book closer to the boy. "It would make life much easier."

"I'd owe you something." Remus's eyes narrowed. The scared side of him had hidden itself behind the angry wolf. He didn't feel right, even to himself. "If I made this potion, right now-- I'd owe you something."

"You belong in a world only I can give you," Voldemort said.

"Why?"

"Because you are a Beast of the Night," Voldemort murmured, "and a Beast of the Darkness."

"I'm nothing like you think I am."

"I _know_ what you are, Remus." Fear sunk its teeth into Remus's chest. His hands trembled. He set his jaw firmly, and faced Voldemort eye to eye. Somewhere inside of him, he was strong. Without the wolf. He was not a Beast of the Darkness. The moon pulled his body and that anger, but he was not what Voldemort thought he was. He was not that simple, nor was he that easy to fool.

"No," Remus said, "you don't."

"I know _what_ you are. Perhaps not who you are -- but that is what I wish to remedy."

"What is it that you want?"

"I have seen things," Voldemort said, and he said no more.

"Oh." Remus felt caged. There was nowhere to run, because no matter what he did, Professor Voldemort _knew_. Remus couldn't run from knowledge. No matter where he went, no matter how fast he ran to get there, the facts would still remain. He felt suddenly like he was going to be ill.

"You are important to me, Remus," Voldemort said suddenly.

"I don't want to be."

"That is not an option." Voldemort ran his fingers through his dark hair, his green eyes almost hypnotic. Remus pulled back, the feet of his chair scraping along the dungeon floor. "Neither is running. But you are a smart boy, and you know that already."

"I don't want to make the potion." Voldemort sighed softly.

"Our lesson for today is over, then." The professor waved his hand absently, and then leaned over, closing the book. "You don't have to worry, Remus. Just remember what we've discussed. You do not belong in this world."

"You don't know," Remus said, his teeth pressed tight together, "anything about me."

"I know more than you think."

Somehow, Remus managed to stand on shaky feet. He couldn't turn his back to the man, keeping his head held high and defiant, despite the sinking terror he felt like a lump of lead in his stomach.

Severus Snape held his books tight to his chest and plowed through the crowd of students. He knew the rules of the hallway well. You kept your head down, you kept quiet, and the most that could happen to you was you got bumped into or knocked aside. It was hard to see ahead of you this way, because you were focusing on your feet, but in the long run it was a lot better for your health and safety.

He had a very good view of his feet, from the way he was walking.

Lucius didn't walk that way, kept his head held high, his blue eyes glinting, daring anyone to tell him he wasn't carrying himself right. Sirius Black did the same sort of thing, only with a less regal sort of swagger. His friend, Remus Lupin, did the same as Severus did. Kept his head down. Let the blows come. Took it in silence, which Severus sometimes imagined to be the strongest way of doing things.

Sometimes, though, he did think he was a fool for not looking where he was going. It made for a lot of otherwise easily-avoided accidents.

Both Severus and whomever it was he had crashed into went down to the ground with a loud thud. Severus himself dropped his book and it went skittering across the floor, kicked about underneath the students' feet.

"Sorry," he said, on automatic instinct.

"Sorry," said another, half-distracted voice, that he recognized immediately to be Remus Lupin's.

"It was my fault," Severus said.

"No. I wasn't looking where I was going." Severus's dark eyes took in the other boy's smaller form. After the inspection, the Slytherin boy stood, brushing himself off, retrieving the lost book.

"Neither was I," he said.

"It wasn't your fault."

"Then I suppose it was just an accident?" Severus looked towards the door Remus had just stepped out of. An involuntary grimace passed over his face. The other boy had come from potions, with Professor Voldemort.

"Right."

Remus stood, eyes distracted, face pale. Severus paused for a moment, wondering if he was sick, or if something had just happened to him, or if he'd just seen a particularly frightening ghost.

"Are you all right?" Silence for a few seconds. Remus turned the panicked eyes of a wild animal too-often attacked on Severus. He hesitated, then relaxed, looking apologetic.

"Yes."

"Are you sure? Because you look a little pale--"

"I'm sure." It was unusual that one of Lucius's bunch was so polite. It was, Remus assumed, the lack of Lucius that caused such a change in personality.

"Perhaps-- you ought to-- the infirmary...?"

"No." Severus studied his face. A frown played across his own as he saw the frightened, skittery way Remus's brown eyes moved about, the way his skin looked oddly gray, the way he seemed haunted, afraid of his own shadow. The boy, Severus knew, was not easily frightened.

"Are you sure you're all right?"

"Yes! Yes, I'm sure. I'm sorry. I'm sure." Remus winced as his voice raised higher. If only he would stop asking questions!

"He didn't--" Severus paused. He licked his lips. It was taking a long shot, and probably foolish to ask, but the way Remus looked was indicative of something quite terrifying. And that, Severus knew, was exactly what Voldemort was, when he wanted to be. Terrifying. "Professor Voldemort didn't-- do anything?" Remus swung his head up, eyes fixed brightly, almost burningly, on Severus's face. The Slytherin boy shrunk back from the gaze. 

"No."

"That's a lie."

"He didn't do anything."

"Just wanted to see if you were all right," Severus said, scowling, staring down at the ground. Remus was silent, his heart pounding fiercely in his chest. He felt like a beast in a cage. "I just know that-- that sometimes, Professor Voldemort can do-- do things. Intimidating."

"Oh."

"Don't worry about them."

"What?" Their eyes met.

"Don't worry about them, that's all. And--"

"Yes?" Remus felt his heart slow, his shaky breaths grow less ragged.

"And about yesterday, with your bag-- I am sorry, about that." Remus blinked.

"It's all right."

"Not really."

"I understand." Severus nodded gravely. 

"Good." The awkwardness between them was suddenly less awkward, because they both felt it, and knew they both did. A few seconds passed. Severus smiled, half-sided, and Remus returned it, the expression much the same on his own face. "I'll-- I'll see you, then."

"Mm-- thank you." Severus shrugged, looking away. 

"He's a lot of talk. Can't do-- can't do half the things he says."

"That's-- that's good to hear."

"Right."

"...right." Remus ran his fingers awkward through his bangs, shoving them back from his eyes. The other boy wasn't quite as bad, when he wasn't in the presence of Lucius Malfoy. In fact, he was rather decent. It seemed suddenly as if all Voldemort's threats were unimportant, as if his knowledge of Remus's secrets had no power in the brightly-lit hallway. 

Remus barely noticed as Severus hefted his things, squared his shoulders, and hurried off, looking back over his shoulder at the other as he left.

It took a moment for him to square his shoulders. He managed it. He'd have to remember to ask the others to let up on Severus Snape, if only a little bit.

Remus began to fail potions.

It wasn't that he couldn't do well in the class, because he could, and the entire class knew it. He'd been top of the class at the beginning of the year. 

By the end of it, he was very near to the bottom.

He quit his tutoring and lost interest in the subject. He avoided Voldemort's questions, avoided doing even the assignments. It was the only class in which he allowed himself to do poorly, almost as poorly as Sirius himself. He was still careful. He had just lost the desire to excel.

The second year passed quicker than the first. The classes were familiar, though they had increased a level in skill requirements, and Remus grew used to the simple routine he fell into as the days and the weeks and the months passed by. Sirius was a part of his life like the sun rising and the moon swelling in the sky. James, Lily and Peter were also parts of his life, but less so, like supports on the edge of a little circle he had made. Sirius had once been like that; now, he was made of the very life force that pulsed through Remus's veins.

As the weeks rushed by, Remus added noticeable physical growth to his list of achievements. Sirius and James, too, were growing, and much faster than Remus himself, but by the end of the year Remus no longer looked three years younger than his actual age. Next to Sirius and James he was still left behind, smaller and a good deal less hearty, and was therefore an easy taget for those who wanted someone to pick on.

Anyone who tried to do so, though, had Sirius to reckon with. No one but Lucius, Crabbe and Goyle came back for more.

Professor Voldemort never revealed Remus's secret, though there was something buried in his jade eyes that told Remus always _I know_. The two of them stayed away from each other, held secrets that neither of them could afford to have revealed to the world of Hogwarts. At last, after a while of paranoia and terror, Remus began to ignore that voice in his mind that told him he was no longer completely safe, no longer as protected as he would have liked himself to be.

Severus Snape, though he was ever faithful to Lucius Malfoy, became as time went by an odd sort of friend to Remus. Sirius hated him with that fiery temper and hot-headed passion that awed Remus so; James disliked him immenseley and took all opportunities possible to torture him; Peter, as always, did what Sirius and James chose to do, and persecuted the Slytherin boy when backed by the other two. 

Remus and Severus kept up pretenses and appearances to satisfy their friends' adversarial relationships but were quite amicable in private, sometimes working together on extra-curricular projects on weekends in the library. Circumstances, Remus reasoned, did not _have_ to make enemies of two people who would otherwise get along just fine. 

For reasons Remus could not fathom or comprehend, Severus worshipped the proud and cruel Lucius Malfoy; for reasons equally confusing and baffling to Severus, Remus looked up to Sirius Black, loud and foolish as he was, as his hero. Because of these two cases of hero-worship, though focused on two completely different sorts of people, Severus and Remus grew to understand each other in a periphery fashion. 

Before the end of Remus's second year, the Slytherin and the Gryffindor had to say their good-byes in private over their final Charms project in the library one night.

"...and I think that's all," Remus said, finishing the last sentence from a six hundred page book on 'Advanced and Applicable Charms.' There was an air of finality to the moment: pride at the completion of of their task, hollow emptiness from the end of a long, hard job finally over. They looked from their own writing to the heavy-handed script of the book, and then Remus closed it solemnly, nodding to himself.

"It is," Severus said, quill scratching over the piece of parchment on the table in front of them for one moment more, before falling still.

They looked at each other, silent, emotions mixed.

"Have a nice summer, Remus," Severus finally murmured.

"Thank you. You, too."

"And I'll see you next year," Severus added after a moment, staring at his feet.

"Yes."

"Yes." Severus nodded. Remus did the same. It was too solemn, like a pact, like they should shake on it. It didn't feel right. It took a few seconds of awkwardness before the both of them simultaneously began to smile. They didn't pretend they were going to write each other. Somewhere, in their loyal sensibilities, they knew this would not be fundamentally _right_. This did not mean, though, that they could not wish each other well.

They left the dark library without speaking further and walked the empty, silent halls without breaking that silence. As always -- together, on nights such as these, they had formed a routine from which they had never yet deviated, and never would deviate -- they went back to the Gryffindor common room, first, and parted ways there.

They lingered by the Fat Lady, who slumbered on, oblivious to their Capulet and-Montague presences, for a moment longer than usual. Remus ran his fingers through his hair which, Snape noticed, was a dusky red-brown when bathed in the hall's lowered lamplight. It seemed to be threaded with flashes of gold, just as those hidden, precious glimmers could be found echoing deep within his eyes.

"Goodnight," Severus said after a while of simply enjoying the company they gave each other, unable to take the silence any longer.

"Next year," Remus said, with an oddly sage, trustworthy tone, complete in its surety. Severus had to nod, unable to disagree when the other boy sounded so sure of himself. "And you'd better leave, now, so I don't get in trouble for giving away the password to a Slytherin."

Nodding once, Severus turned on his heel and left, feeling alone but elated in the secrecy of their forbidden friendship.

It was nice to have enemies as friends.

They were alone because James and Lilly had gone off to be alone, themselves, and Peter was not an idiot, knowing when he was not wanted and knowing even better when was a good time to leave people to themselves.

Sirius was torn between end-of-the-year bliss and the miserable, lonely incompleteness he would feel without Remus. 

Remus was not torn. He knew the loneliness that was soon to come and permeate his entire being. He was beginning to recognize it, and would soon attempt to understand it, the forces behind it. There was no happiness battling with depression for control of his emotions.

"Miss you," Sirius mumbled, face buried in Remus's hair, against the side of his neck. Such intimacies between them were not uncommon. Remus sat very still, feeling Sirius's breath and his words against his own skin and the base of his scalp. 

"I'll miss you, too."

"It was so _lonely_, without you, last time."

"Mm," Remus sighed, eyes shutting lazily. He was starting to realize why he felt so comfortable only against Sirius's body, only just starting, but it was coming to him, at least.

"I'll write you. I promise."

"Will you?"

"I said, I _promise_."

"Then I'll be waiting for your letters." Remus could feel Sirius grin against him. He shivered.

"You'll write me back?"

"Of course."

"And longer, too, knowing you." They both smiled.  
  
"Naturally." Sirius ran his fingers through Remus's hair, fingertips curling against Remus's cheek. It was hard to breathe, suddenly.

"They'll be better, they'll be less messy."

"Mm."

"What're you going to do, over the summer?"

"Read." Remus smiled faintly, and shrugged. "Not much else."

"Should do more."

"Mm."

"Michael and da promised they'd let me down into the mines, though mum's still against the whole idea." Sirius let his fingers wander down Remus's shoulder, the bone beneath the robe enticing.

"That's," Remus sighed softly, breath catching, "that's nice."

"Mm. I'm excited about it." His fingers against the side of Remus's neck, which was soft. Touches like this, aimless, just for touching. There was nothing odd or wrong about it. It just was. Sirius liked it. He got the feeling from the way Remus was relaxed in his arms that Remus liked it, too. It wasn't like touching Ellen Abbot -- it was better because, after all, it had to do with Remus.

"Be careful."

"Just like you to say that."

"I know."

"Well, I will be."

"Good." Remus felt too content to worry. Remus felt too content to care. Remus was too close to Sirius and too happy with Sirius to give a galleon about anything else going on in the whole world.

"And," Sirius said, but he trailed off.

"And?"

"Nothing."

Remus turned his head just enough so that his face was buried against Sirius's shoulder. Sirius cupped his head in one hand.

"This is nice," he said after a moment or two of silence.

"Yes," Remus said, "it is nice."

"You know," Sirius said, "you smell familiar. Like-- like something nice, but I don't know what." The compliment was awkward and not particularly well thought out, but Remus felt wonderful over it, all the same. "When I get home I think I'll just write you letters all day."

"No," Remus murmured into his neck, "you won't." But it was a nice thought, anyway. Sirius sighed, and then laughed.

"You're right," he admitted. "You know me too well."

"Just be more careful about the sorts of things you say, next time." A pause. "I'm on to you, Sirius Black."

After that they fell quiet. They found each other's hands after that, and twined their fingers together, interlacing them against Sirius's thigh. With one thumb Sirius rubbed the back of Remus's hand, and their breathing moved slow, their breaths moving against each other's bodies.

The silence passed with the scenery, slow and pleasant. Sirius curved around Remus's smaller body, protective of it, not too close for comfort -- though with Sirius, Remus knew his privacy would never be invaded, nor would his skin ever crawl at any touch. Their heads rested close together. The minutes were respective of them, and grew slower, longer, so that their time would not speed by as the train seemed to. 

Their chests rose and fell together, following the steady rhythm dictated by the clacking of the train tracks.

"Remus?"

"Yes?"

"No-- nothing."

The rest of the trip was passed in the companionable quiet, which spoke of something more, and something shared between them, and things that could not be fitted into words when vocabulary was so limited and useless.

There was no reason to speak.

Their connection ran deeper than words.

They parted the instant they got off the train, Sirius going in one direction, Remus in another. 

"You've grown," Etienne said softly to his son. The way he said it meant, 'I missed you. You've changed. I've missed seeing you change.' Remus smiled faintly up at him. His father had changed, too, the gray hairs whiter in his mustache, his hairline not receding, but growing grayer. His face was lined, though it was still kind, softened, impossibly glad to be seeing his son again.

"Mm. I did. An inch and a half." He let his father take his suitcase, stretching his arms above him. He was cramped from the long train ride, and his body, which had grown used to dozing off against Sirius's chest, was missing that previous warmth quite a good deal. "What time are we taking the train back?"

"We're not."

"We're not taking the train?"

"No. We're driving." Etienne's blue eyes sparkled and his lips twitching, longing to grin childishly. Such expressions, though, had long since faded from his face. Now, only the shadow of mischief remained, flickering deep in those pale blue depths.

"We're driving in...?" Remus looked at his father skeptically.

"Our car." Etienne smiled beneath his mustache. "You think you're the only one who knows how to make changes?" Remus returned the smile. "Let's go." 

They didn't take each other's hands. They walked side by side instead, perhaps wanting secretly to touch but finding the distance between them too great. Remus had grown, Remus had changed, and something suggested to both their subconscious's that they could not hold hands any longer. Etienne felt proud and despairing, but said nothing, glad that his son was back with him at last.

If only for a little while.

The first letter came within a week, and was followed by quite a few more.

Remus,  


    It's the same here as it's always been. Mum says I've grown another inch since I came back from Hogwarts, but that it's only natural, since she's the only one who can feed me right. Obviously she's never seen what they feed us at breakfast, let alone during the holidays.  

    Bet you've bloody gone and lost weight again. I'll start sending chocolate bars, maybe?  

    Told you I'd write, anyway. More later -- when something actually happens.
Miss you.  
Sirius

Sirius,  


    I should have expected as much. I'm expecting more next time, you know. I am eating, and I happen to have a chocolate bar with me this very moment, as I'm writing to you.  

    Nothing of any importance has happened here, either. My father bought a car, but aside from being driven to and from the Hogwarts Express, it barely affects me at all.
Miss you, too.  
Remus

Remus,  


    I've never been one to write the Great American Novel. That was more your style, don't you think? Besides, if I blathered on about nothing I'd bore you half to death before you even got halfway through the letter.
Isn't it better to keep things short and sweet?  


    The twins have been sick for the past week. It's non-stop crying through the day and night both. Me and Michael spend most of our time outside, down by the lake, when he isn't working in the mines with Da, which is more often than not, these days. The noise is enough to drive you crazy. Mum's gone sick with worry. I have to admit, I hate seeing them like that, too.
I still miss you.  
Sirius

Sirius,  


    I'm sorry about the twins. I hope they're better soon, for their sakes, as well as for yours.  

    I finished 'The Sound and The Fury' last night, though I doubt you'd care. Nothing else has happened. I went to the museum a few days back with my father, and as always, it's nice to be back with him.
I still miss you, too.  
Remus 

Remus,  
Now look who's writing short letters?  


    The twins are better. Thank God for mum's sanity, my sanity, and their health.  

    Sometimes, I feel so bloody left out around here. Michael and Da are down in the mines. William's turning fifteen and Da said he'd let him go down after his birthday. Cassy and Mum aren't exactly the type to include me, and the twins are the twins.
I miss you more, now.  
Sirius

Sirius,  


    I'll try to write you more often, to keep you company as best I can. Papa's starting to wonder who it is who's mailing me so often. He's guessed it's "that Sirius" I'm always talking about, and I think he's glad that at least I'm keeping in touch with my friends.
He's trying to get me out more.  
I know you'd agree with him on that.  
Still -- it's not as simple when you're not here, with me.  
I miss you more, too.  
Remus

Sirius folded the latest letter after the third reading. So far, this summer had been much better than the last, it was obvious to the rest of his family the letters brought daily by Owl Post were the reasons why. With a hidden but wonderfully bright grin he folded it back up and slipped it inot the haphazardly carved wooden box that housed Remus's other letters.

"Got another letter, I see." Michael flopped down next to Sirius on the back porch, arms stretching out behind his head. "You're quite popular. I had no idea." He grinned the famous Black grin, eyes fixed on the sky, and not his brother.

"Yeah."

"You've been getting a lot of 'em, lately."

"I've been writing a lot of 'em." Sirius fingered the edge of the box protectively, watching Michael from the corner of his eyes.

"Unlike you. Not," Michael continued quickly, "like I'm complaining. You've been doing a lot better this summer."

"Mm."

"...who're they from?" Sirius had seen it coming. He scowled faintly, then relaxed, nudging the box closer to himself. The wood was rough. Together, he and Michael had made it, three years ago, and it told of Sirius's inexperience and Michael's lack of patience. Still, it served its purpose well enough.

"A friend." Michael paused for a while, rolling a cigarette carefully in his fingers. It took concentration to make it just right, just the way he liked it. Sirius had tried one of Michael's cigarettes once and it had made him ill for two days.

"This Remus you're always talking about?" Sirius nodded. Couldn't lie to Michael. He'd learned that a long, long time ago. They sat for a while in silence after that, Michael taking long drags on his cigarette, the smoke curling up into the air, which was hot and heavy. "I hear also," Michael said after a while, "that you're popular with the girls in school, too."

"Who from?"

"Does it matter, if it's true?" Sirius shrugged. "_Is_ it true?"

"S'pose you could say that." Michael laughed softly around his cigarette, the smoke coming out in short little bursts from between his parted lips.

"Can't imagine my little brother having the girls lining up just to be noticed by him, that's all." It dawned on Sirius suddenly that Michael _must_ have been talking to James at some point to get this information, and he scowled.

"I'm going to kill that bloody Potter." Again, Michael laughed.

"Thought it'd take you longer to figure out, than that."

"I'm not _stupid_."

"Right." Michael's eyes twinkled, and he nudged into Sirius with an elbow. "Where'd you get that bloody necklace, anyway? One of the girls?" Sirius opened his mouth to yell out a protesting 'no!' and then shut it.

"Not like that," he settled on saying.

"Who was it?"

"Someone-- someone special," Sirius mumbled looking down at his lap helplessly.

"What's her name?" After receiving no reply, Michael sighed softly, stubbing out his cigarette in the dirt, beneath his bootheel. "Not going to tell me?"

"No. I'm not."

"All right. If you _must_ be that way. ...at least you could tell me about her? Come on, Sirius, you're turning out to be such a disappointment..." Once more, Michael nudged Sirius in the side with his elbow. "C'mon." Sirius felt oddly ill.

"Well," he said, "she-- she's got these-- brown eyes, only when you look deeper, they're not brown, they're sort of this _gold_..."

"You've got it _bad_, haven't you," Michael murmured, sympathetic, though he was grinning from ear to ear.

"Guess so," Sirius said, the weight of Michael's supposedly light-hearted words hitting him full in the stomach. He did have it bad, didn't he. And it wasn't for Ellen Abbott, or for Maeve Zabini, or anything boring and stupid and as wrong to his chest as they felt, whenever he thought about them. No, he had it bad, and he supposed he'd had it bad for a while, only he hadn't fully understood. He felt very calm. Very stupid, and very afraid, but also very calm.

"Well? You gonna say anything more than what color her _eyes_ are?"

"Well," Sirius said, beginning to smile. A great weight had been lifted from his shoulders, or so it felt. "I feel sometimes, like she's a little too smart for me, you know?"

"And you don't think mum's too smart for da?" The both of them laughed at that, and then Michael nodded, encouraging Sirius to go on.

"She's always got the answer for everything. 'S why she's so amazing -- always knows what to do, and when."

"Mm." Michael nodded sagely, as if he knew just what Sirius was talking about. Sirius closed his eyes, picturing Remus before them. He opened his eyes again, and continued.

"And she has this hair that can be the same color as the gold in her eyes. You know, when she's in the sunlight."

"What a poet my little brother's turned out to be. I never knew."

"Thought about it a lot," Sirius mumbled, cheeks flushing.

"You writing letters to her?"

"Yes," Sirius answered. That was true, too.

"Good luck, Sirius." Michael winked, standing, stretching. His unruly brown hair fell into his eyes, and his face looked satisfied, content with himself. "Make sure you make your move while you've still got the chance, if you like her all _that_ much." Sirius looked down at his knees, old jeans torn and fraying. "Or else you'll regret it," Michael added after a moment, before turning and trotting into the house.

If only, Sirius mused, it were that simple. If only things worked the way Michael reasoned them out.

With a sigh, he took out his pen and a piece of paper, and began to write Remus back, lingering on the letters of his friend's name with a fondness and a patience he showed for nothing else in the world.

It hurt.

Remus closed his eyes and felt his muscles tense, felt the blackness pound through his veins. The earth was alive, and he could feel it calling to him through the bars. He hated the metal scent of the bars, their firmness.

Just outside, Etienne sat. His eyes were closed and his hands were clutched tight in his lap.

_I'm sorry_, his body said. _I am so sorry._

Remus licked his dry lips, gnawing at them. Outside the window the sun was sinking, slowly, too slowly, and he was terrified of it. He reared back, eyes wild and inhuman, widening. It was easier to close his eyes to everything, and block out the blood red color of the sun. Easier, but he couldn't manage to do it. The wolf had to look at everything face to face.

He whined, deep in the back of his throat.

As dark fell he could _feel_ it, rather than see it, with golden eyes that fixed in despair on the glass window-pane.

First his fingers, fingertips turning to fingerpads, nails elongating, changing shape. He kept his own nails short. These were long, the weapons of his furry animal body. He stared down and watched them change, watched the way his flesh morphed and grew fur and stretched and shrunk. It was revolting. He recoiled from himself.

Then his whole hands to paws. It began to hurt, bones and flesh melting and reforming. He closed his eyes and the tears came, hot and wet down his cheeks, choking up in his throat so that he made ragged, panting sounds deep in his chest.

His arms next. He lifted himself up on his knees and screamed and the sound came out ragged and broken. All the sinews in his thin arms were twisting, all the bones coming loose at the joints to grind against each other. He tried to hide his face, but knew that sort of weakness would not hide him from the pain that pounding through his body with his blood.

Through his shoulders. He could feel it as if his bones were breaking, being stretched like putty. All down the center of his back. His spine twisting, aching, his gut clenching so that he doubled in on himself. Every vertebrae was housing his spinal cord, a livewire of agony. He wasn't screaming anymore but he was howling, a sound that was half human, half animal, and terrifying to even his own ears, which pressed flat against his head, trying to block out the sound.

Down through his legs. Over the muscles in his thighs, ripping them to shreds. His knees, growing, crunching. His calves, the tendons snapping, new tendons growing.

His body hurt.

His mind screamed out for release.

And last came his feet, which merged into his hindpaws, completing him as a wolf down to the last inch of soft skin melted into coarser skin and thick, russet colored fur.

He lifted his head and he was a wolf suddenly, seeing in wolf black-and-white, seeing only the lines across his vision which meant pain and entrapment. Another night, and he was still caged. It would be another night of throwing himself against the bars, knowing he'd wake bruised and broken. It would be another night of giving up finally on the bars and clawing himself, biting and tearing at his own flesh, in punishment. 

_Why can't I get out?_

Etienne watching, his fingernails digging into his palms, his face pale. He sat through it always when Remus was with him. It was why he had not given his son his name, once Dalila died. Because he could not be a part of this. Because he could not help his son through this. Because this was the loupe-garou and Etienne was distanced far, far from his son on the night of the full moon, no matter what he did.

He put his son in a _cage_.  
  
He was not a father.

_Papa_.

Against the bars the wolf crashed, once, twice, three times. Meeting, as always with painful defeat, he crawled away, gave up, pulled back, head low and ears flattened to the back of his head. The wolf and Remus trapped inside him felt themseves bare the wolf's teeth teeth, glinting against his black lips in the darkness. A whining sound. Coming from their -- the wolf's -- own throat, but Remus could hear it from the wolf's ears.

_Leave, Papa_.

That pale look on Etienne's face, pale and worn and drawn. Every night like this put it there. In the morning, Remus would look just as tired, just as broken. In shadows and grays the wolf could watch Etienne and hate him, snarl at him, scrabble at the metal as if he wished to kill the man.

_Killed her._

Because after all, after all, this was the enemy, who took him from the forest, who took away his mother, who put him in this cage and would not let him out no matter how he pleaded.

The wolf raged as if he would kill him.

Were he to get out, he _would_.

_Please, Papa. Leave._

And it began again, a steady, thumping rhythm of his body meeting with the metal. Again, again, again. Over and over and over, jolting through his body, one bruise for the morning, two bruises for the morning, three bruises for the morning, four -- until he lost count, until his brain swam with fuzzy rage and pain.

Taunting him was the completeness of the moon. Through the window and the bars and his own eyes he could see that great white form, perfect and whole, in the dark night sky. It was surrounded by a circle of mist, which meant, his wolf eyes told him, tomorrow would rain.

He would sleep through it, form curled up tight in the comfort of his soft bed.

  
  
Remus,  
I woke up late this morning, and I missed you.  


    Despite mum's protests I went down into the mines today with Michael and da after they broke for lunch. It was dark down there, and my hands are still black, especially underneath the fingernails. I came up coughing, and I missed you.  

    The twins, Michael and I tried rebuilding our old treehouse yesterday. I know I'll sit in there alone and miss you.
Sirius

Sirius,  
I went to the museum today with papa, and I missed you.  


    I spent the day after that reading, and thought about how you never let me 'waste my day' like that, and I missed you.
Not that much time left, but I miss you.  
Remus

Remus,  
Michael's starting to make fun of me for all these letters.  
Today, I'm going to the mines again.  


    Something to do to keep me busy, anyway. Maybe I'll see if anyone here has a copy of the Count of Monte Cristo. We haven't finished it yet. I want to know how it ends, at least.
Sirius

Sirius,  
Today we went shopping for the new school supplies needed.  
I can't believe it's almost third year already.  


    Time does fly, when you're having fun, as they say. I never used to believe people when they said those sorts of things. But it does explain why summers pass so quickly, now.
Remus

Remus,  
Nothing else matters.  
Hogwarts Express.  
Two days.  
Sirius

Severus could not concentrate on the book opened before him.  
  
It was the end of summer. School would start soon. It was a beautiful day, the bright sky and the crisp air and the light breeze all combining to paint a perfect picture outside his window.

He half dreaded going back to Hogwarts.

There would, first off, be Lucius. He couldn't help himself for tagging along behind the boy. They were best friends -- at least, it seemed to the world that they were -- but whenever they were apart, Severus hated himself for taking the blond's every word as gospel truth.

There was, though, Remus Lupin.

The secret.

The friend, the _real_ friend.

If Lucius ever found out, there would have been such trouble for the both of them. But Lucius wouldn't find out. They were too careful for that.

Remus was like him. They laughed at each other's jokes, they respected each other, and, most off all, they understood each other better than, Severus reasoned, anyone else could, because their personalities were so alike. Remus was one of the reasons Severus _was_ excited to be going back to Hogwarts in two days. Professor Voldemort was the main reason why he was dreading it.

He ran his fingers through his black hair, frowning slightly to himself.

He didn't like it.

"Something wrong, Severus?" His mother's voice was nice, was smooth like silk, but had the terribly annoying habit of cutting through his thoughts.

"Nothing, mother," he murmured softly.

"You're not concentrating on your book." Severus shrugged. "Is it going back to school that's bothering you?"

"It's not bothering me," Severus said, detached, "I'm just thinking about it. That's all."

"Mm." Vespasia Snape watched her son for a while, his pale face and the black hair he'd gotten from her, the aquiline nose and thoughtful mouth that were without a doubt directly from his father's side. There was obviously something bothering him, though, in the way his jaw was set and his eyes were lost, focusing on the world outside his window. She shook her head slightly. "Are you sure everything is all right?"

"Yes, mother," Severus lied. He waited to hear her leave, and then scowled again, staring straight through the book as if he could burn holes through it.

When enemies were friends, and friends became enemies, things got complicated.

Severus had grown up with Lucius Malfoy by his side, Vespasia and Cyril Snape best friends with Septimus and Delphinia Malfoy ever since their own days at Hogwarts. It only seemed natural, then, that his loyalties would be to the blond, and to his own family -- who, when they spoke of Voldemort, spoke of him in the most celebratory terms. His secret dislike of Voldemort, his secret discomfort when around Lucius, his secret disaffection for all that his family and his family's kind stood for would all cause complete disappointment in him. Above all, befriending a poor half-muggle such as Remus Lupin would make Vespasia and Cyril sick with disgust.

He squared his jaw.

What did they know of anything? They looked down on certain 'types' of people, set impossible goals for Severus himself, and tended to treat everyone as if they were worthless. He had harbored this resentment in his chest for quite a while now, but in the past few months it had surged up, stronger, more powerful. He wanted to break away from his family, to have nothing to do with them. What he wanted most was a new life, was to disappear from his cold, comfortless house and be raised somewhere else smaller, warmer, less empty.

Hogwarts was going to become an escape, he realized, his scowl relaxing into a mere frown. 

Hogwarts was going to become an escape, and those weekend nights in the library were what he looked forward to most.

James Potter had never been happier in his life.

It had been an entire summer without Lilly Evans, and, though Quidditch had done a lot to improve his moods and distract him for whole hours at a time, James was about to go crazy from missing her.

They had talked a few times on the telephone -- muggle inventions could be so helpful sometimes -- and the last time was two days before the return trip to Hogwarts.

"I can't believe," Lilly murmured, half incredulous and half wry, into the phone base, "you're so excited about going back to school again."

"Come _on_," James said, and she could hear that familiar grin in his voice, "this year, I'm _definitely_ going to beat Sirius at Quidditch so bad, he won't know what's _hit_ him!"

"How terribly exciting." Her voice dry. "I'm glad to see competition has never gotten in the way of your friendship."

"And I'm trying out for the Quidditch team," he added on a whim, hopeful.

"They're bloody stupid if they don't make you seeker," Lilly muttered, in a moment of fierce loyalty to her friend, to her maybe-more-than-friend. James swelled up with pride, face going bright red to his earlobes. He was glad that Lilly wasn't there with him, for once, so she couldn't see him blush like that.

"Be lucky if I make chaster," he mumbled, grinning wider than he ever had in his life.

"Seeker, or they're fools," Lilly replied, firmly, her tone final and assuring. She was a girl of her convictions, and through her sarcasm, she was unerringly faithful and devoted.

"It'd be _great,_" James admitted. Lilly sighed to hide the fact to even herself that she was smiling.

"I suppose," she said finally, "it'll be _all right_ to go back. Even though the tests do get harder, and the classes'll be, too."

"Besides," James managed, after gathering up all his courage, "it'll be nice to see you again, too."

"Yes," Lilly said, startled, pleased, "yes. ...it'll be nice to see you, also." All the terror faded from James's body.

"Right," he said, the grin in his voice unmistakable.

"Right," Lilly echoed, allowing that smile to show through. James relaxed back into his chair with a hidden, deep sigh of relief. After a moment, he queried softly,

"Lilly?"

"Yeah?" James licked his lips, visions passing before his eyes, a stadium cheering and the golden snitch right before his eyes and his hand closing around it. It made his heart pound in day-dream excitement.

"You really think I could make Gryffindor seeker?" he asked.

"James Potter, you are _incorrigible_," Lilly muttered, and hung up.

The streets were dirty and the houses were crowded tightly together, like the people inside them. On the haphazard and broken cobblestone the children played in bright bursts against the grayness all around them. Dora Pettigrew stood in bed slippered, house-dressed glory, hands clasped before her chest, calling to her son through the scattering of smaller boys and girls, calling him to dinner.

"Peter!" She lifted herself up on the balls of her feet, eyes scanning for her boy without success. "Peter!"

Peter Pettigrew heard his mother's voice lift on the humid, dirty air and cringed, pressing up against the cartons he used as a fort away from the rest of the world. After a while, his mother would give up, and when he returned home later she'd be in bed, his cold dinner left out on the kitchen counter. All he had to do was wait.

And he was so, so patient.

"Peter? Peter!" His mother's voice clawed out at him, and he grimaced. Soon, he promised himself. Soon.

Here was the place where he felt this aloneness not as a burden, but as a blazing badge. Here was the place where his solitary became solidarity. In this world of cobblestone and old shipping crates, he was not his mother's son, not Peter Pettigrew, who had no father and no special talents of which anyone spoke, who got pushed around and left behind and left out. He was as strong and as confident as James Potter, as brave and as daring as Sirius Black. 

His shoes were not one size too small, with holes worn into the heels. His robes and clothes were not the neighbors hand-me-downs.

"Peter!" But he didn't answer to the name Peter when he was sitting amongst the crates.

He didn't answer to anybody.

With his eyes lighting up, he imagined himself on the sleek line of a brand new Nimbus. Though Peter was no good at riding a broom, this hidden side of himself, this person buried deep in him, was a better player than both James and Sirius combined. On this broom, in this place, was where he won Gryffindor the house cup by winning the Quidditch match, catching the golden Snitch in a daring moment of impossible speed.

In this place also was where Ellen Abott loved him, and he had his choice of all the girls as Sirius did in reality. He would walk down the halls of Hogwarts and all eyes would be on him, but he wouldn't feel embarrassed, he'd just keep his chin up and hold his back very straight. Everyone would envy him. No one would think of sticking a foot out to trip him.

"Peter..." His mother's voice faded out, sounding exasperated and feeble. A little smile played over his lips. He would have to hear his name no longer.

"Not like," he muttered softly, "she _really_ cares."

So what if he was prone to talking to himself? Everyone did it -- especially everyone who had no one else to talk to. When he talked to himself, he sounded sometimes like Sirius, sometimes like James, and sometimes even like Remus, always having the answer to a problem or the solution to a messy situation. Remus, though quiet like Peter, always had his place amongst the other boys, because he was so smart about everything.

"Not like," he murmured, scuffing his worn shoes against the cobblestones, "_anyone_ really cares."

He knew that wasn't true. James and Sirius stood up for him, and he and Remus talked a lot, and Lilly was even quite fond of him. But here, when he was home, there was no one who acknowledged his existence, beyond calling him to dinner.

Everyone, he thought to himself, looks for where they belong.

But most people find it.

He leaned back against the splintering wood behind him but he didn't wince, lifting pale green eyes to watch the clouds move slowly by in the sky. Not many people noticed the clouds, but if only they _thought_ about how _important_ the clouds were!

"Someday," he murmured, voice firm, "someday I'll show everyone."

Septimus Malfoy looked very carefully at his son with eyes that focused like ice. The boy looked like himself, the way he held his back, the way he tilted his chin up, the way he looked down on things with no effort at all. Septimus nodded, content and proud. Beside him, his slight wife's gray eyes lit up, but she remained quiet, just touching his forearm lightly.

"Hogwarts is the only school to which the Malfoy family will attend," Septimus began softly, "despite its change of headmaster and of requirements for students accepted." Lucius scowled.

"They're letting _anyone_ in," he said darkly, huffing up beneath his breath.

"Luckily," Septimus continued, shooting his son an approving but silencing glance, "there are still some amongst the staff who are thinking sensibly and clearly towards Hogwarts' future." From where he sat, Voldemort nodded slowly, acknowledging the compliment.

"We are honored," Delphinia Malfoy said, pulling away from her husband, "to have you as a guest in our house."

"As am I honored to be received here," Voldemort said, speaking for the first time since he had arrived in the Malfoy mansion. He stood with a determined grace, running his fingers through his dark hair, a striking figure in the middle of the cold room. He was terrifying, but no one could place a finger upon why. Part of it was the ambition which filled him like a burning aura. Part of it was the fire inside him, hidden behind all the cool ice. No one could judge him, gauge him, test his motives or understand his actions. No one knew exactly what it was he wanted. He was a mystery -- and those things that are mysterious are all the more frightening for their unpredictable mystery. "As it is _always_ an honor to be received with the support I have so desired to cultivate."

"You have our support," Delphinia said, lowering her lashes, "and all else that we can offer."

"And again -- you spoil and flatter me!" Voldemort's lips curved into that smile, that pleasing, clawing smile. People fell prey to it. It was the smile of a serpent. "I do not deserve such kindnesses as your family has shown me."

"The world is changing," Septimus said. "We must do all we can to preserve the ways with which we have grown accustomed, without letting ourselves grow obsolete." Voldemort's reptilian eyes sparkled.

"Yes," he said softly, like a tiger purring. "And, I must say, I take it always as a mark of success when those of the younger generation are so eager to be loyal to me." Lucius's lips pulled back into a self-satisfied, pleased smile. "The future is all that matters -- everything else is unimportant. And the next generation _is_ the future, is it not?" Septimus and Delphinia nodded. 

"We hope," Delphinia murmured, "that you shall come to stay with us again."

"Madam," Voldemort replied, bowing low, "I shall avail myself of every opportunity to visit your delightful home."

"We consider it an honor to have you as our guest," Septimus added. Voldemort laughed softly, and though it was not an unpleasant sound, Lucius felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. It sounded like snake scales against more snake scales, dry and mirthless.

"I consider it an honor that you consider it so," the dark haired man said. He saw a joke in something, and Delphinia smiled nervously. "But now," Voldemort continued suddenly, "I really must take my leave, or I do not know what else shall be done in Hogwarts during my absence."

"We thank you for choosing to spend so long a period here," Septimus said as Voldemort's surprisingly warm hand shook his own.

"I thank you for putting up with me and calling it an honor," Voldemort replied as he kissed Delphinia's own hand, moving down with surprising grace to his knees. "The world is changing, and it is nice to know there are still those willing to change _with_ it."

"We are a dying breed," Septimus said, "but some of us are too strong for death."

"Mm," Voldemort murmured, one brow lifting smoothly. "Yes." He nodded once to Lucius before he swept out, leaving the room behind him as silent and as frigid as a mausoleum.

"I think that went well," Delphinia said, smirking slightly.

"He's _amazing_," Lucius breathed.

Septimus was silent, satisfied, hands burning.

Outside the towering mansion, Voldemort paused. Most people disgusted him. Most people did not understand. The boy was too young to understand, and Septimus too old. Delphinia was another case altogether, trying too hard to please a cause she knew nothing about.

Time was moving faster, and the world on its axis was spinning just quickly enough for him to imagine he could feel it. He had no delusions. He did not lie to himself, for all he had to do was too important to be ruined by the foolishness of human nature. It was true that he had supporters, but not a single one of them understood what it was they were doing. That was why they remained so loyal to him -- they all thought he was working towards what they wanted, and worked towards it too, with a fervor only expected from men fighting for what they want to possess.

It was, in Voldemort's opinion, all a very big, very amusing joke, one to which only he knew the punchline.

Living was a set-up for it.  
  
The sky was a delicate blue and the Malfoy Estate grounds were beautiful, if not a bit chilling in their design. Nature should be nature, cultivated by man, but not controlled by it. Voldemort did not want to reign, though if that came into play in his plan then so be it. A ruler truly had no power, and was doomed in thinking that he did. No, what he wanted was for the world to be his joke.

That way, he could take himself lightly, and he would never fall prey to pride or illusion. That way, passion would give way to laughter, and he would be stronger for it.

He bent down by a red rose bush and ran his fingers over the velvety petals. The color was exquisite.

"Lovely," he murmured to himself.

"Thank you, sir," said a coarse but proud voice behind him. He turned slowly, looking up over his shoulder. Behind him stood a stocky man who was no doubt the head gardener.

"You are _very_ welcome. You have done an excellent job. The blooms are superior to any I've seen in all my lifetime." The man's sunburned face puffed up with that pride, and Voldemort smiled to see it. The world, with all its people and all its emotions, was fascinating to observe, and never to be fully understood.

"Don't do nothin' but water 'em an' make sure th'dead blooms ain' gettin' in th'way of the newer'uns."

"Very clever," Voldemort murmured, thoughtful. Was that the way of the world? You made sure the older and the less productive did not stunt the growth or drink up the sunlight that could be used for the stronger and more youthful. "Very clever, Mr....?"

"Dobbins, sir."

"Mr. Dobbins. You have done an _excellent_ job. Perhaps, one day, I shall have to ask you for advice with my own roses. Perhaps I shall even have to steal you away from your lovely and kind employers and set you to use in my own garden."

"Sir," Dobbins scoffed, fingers tightening on his rake.

"Please," Voldemort murmured, not unkindly, "don't call me sir. Call me Riddle."

"Riddle, sir?"

"Just Riddle." Voldemort smiled faintly. "Mr. Riddle, if you must, but beyond that, I feel 'sir' doesn't quite fit me."

"Yes, Mr. Riddle." 

"Might I have a bloom, for the road? It is a long journey, to where I am going."

"Well -- if yee're th' Malfoy's guest, Mr. Riddle, I don' see why no'." Voldemort nodded, plucking the largest bloom in the center, like a blood red bruise against the leave green foliage, and then against his gloved fingers.

"Pure elegance, the rose. Don't you agree, Mr. Dobbins?"

"Aye. Tha' I do, Mr. Riddle." Voldemort watched the petals, soft and delicate in the light, end-of-summer breeze. Soon, the rose would lose its beauty. That was the way of all things. "An' tha'un's a beauty."

"Yes, I thought so. Especially in this light." Dobbins nodded, peering around Voldemort's shoulder as he inspected the blossom in his hands. "Pity I had to pluck it," he murmured after a moment, soft, under his breath. Dobbins blinked, and frowned faintly. 

"S'what roses is for," he said softly. Voldemort paused, and then smiled widely.

"Yes," he said. "Yes, isn't it."

"We can't trust him," Professor McGonagall said, sitting stiffly in her chair. Her hands were folded, tensed, on her knees.

"We don't know that," Albus Dumbledore murmured, toying absently with a half-broken quill.  
  
"We've always known we can't trust him," McGonagall pressed, frowning deeply, "and everyone knows what it is he's doing. We can't allow him to teach here, with access to the children."

"We have no proof, Minerva. We can't fire him without proof."

"And we can't simply let him _stay_ here!"

"I'm afraid we have to." The paperweight on Dumbledore's desk skittered nervously back and forth across it, as if it were pacing in thought.

"We don't _have_ to do anything. You are, after all, the headmaster of this school." McGonagall gave Dumbledore a withering look, and Dumbledore shrugged, smiling faintly.

"All the proof we have is hearsay. I can't fire a teacher on such a feeble platform of proof."

"The man," McGonagall said through clenched teeth, "is using his position here to twist the children's minds."

"Minerva," Dumbledore warned. He was frowning, now, behind his dark beard, tugging at it in thought. It was quite a predicament, he had to admit, but there was nothing he could do about it, yet, despite the worry that gnawed at his chest.

"I know," McGonagall muttered, leaning back and pursing her lips up tight. "I know there's nothing we can do. I hate it. We're losing time. He has the upper hand."

"Yes," Dumbledore said. The paperweight made a squeaking sound against the broken quill. Dumbledore was too lost in thought to notice it. "We seem to be caught between a rock and a hard place, don't we?"

"Mm," McGonagall snorted.

"There's really nothing we can do, Minerva."

"Except for keep a close eye on him, Albus." Minerva's golden eyes focused on Dumbledore's face.

"Not _spy_ on him," Dumbledore protested.

"No," McGonagall said calmly, firmly, "just keep a close eye on him. In case."

"He's careful."

"Then we just have to be more so." The paperweight thudded down against the desk with another squeak against the quill.

"Stop that," Dumbledore muttered, swatting at it absently. "All right. All right, we'll...we'll take a closer look into this. Just to err on the side of precaution, naturally."

"Naturally." McGonagall nodded, not content, but as satisfied as she knew she was going to get from this conversation. "Now," she continued, sighing deeply, brushing a few stray strands of hair out of her eyes, "I have a lesson to plan."

"Yes, yes, go on," Dumbledore murmured, waving her out. It left him alone, with many serious things to think about and an uncharacteristic from playing over his usual cheerful features. He had never trusted Voldemort -- known when he was a boy as Tom Riddle -- when he had taught him as a student.

He trusted him even less, now.

But there really was nothing he could do.

Remus stared straight ahead, out the window of the car, feet dangling over the seat edge. They almost touched the floor of the car. Almost. His suitcase was a pleasant, not-uncomfortable weight on his lap, half as big as he was.

"You're excited to go back?" Etienne asked softly, eyes on the road.

"Yes." Remus traced the lines of his suitcase thoughtfully, watching the scenery fly by.

"You miss it -- your friends -- during the summer. Don't you."

"Mm. Yes."

"Perhaps..." Etienne licked his lips. "Perhaps you could ask a friend to come and visit you, next summer." Remus's hands stilled.

"Really?" His eyes lit up the way Dalila's once had, when Etienne had first kissed her, or when Etienne had first shown her the little band of gold and asked her to be his wife.

"Why not?" Another secretive glance towards his son. 

"Oh," Remus said, "oh." His breath was coming a little quicker. He knew without a moment's hesitation whom he would ask to stay. He knew without a moment's pause that Sirius Black would say yes. His eyes sparkled golden.

"Would you like that?"

"Very much," Remus murmured, eyes moving to meet his father's. Understanding passed between them, loneliness and affection and the love that flowed deeper than that, strong and simple.

"Then feel free to invite someone."

"Thank you."

"Mm." Etienne smiled faintly, mustache trembling with the expression.

"The-- the cage," Remus said, after a moment of silence had passed. "What about...?"

"We'll put it in-- storage, or something. For the visit." Remus nodded.

"All right," he agreed.

The rest of the drive passed slowly, Remus's eyes lit up from within in secretive joy. If Etienne could read his son's mind, he would have liked to at that moment, the way he bit lightly at his lower lip, and kept his shining eyes focused on his small hands pressed against his suitcase.

His son was a mystery to him. He loved him more than anything, but there was a wall erected between them. Beneath the wall, which did not go deep, their lives were intertwined, and they depended on each other, loved each other intensely. But the wall was built high, and he could barely see the workings of his son's mind through it. His motives were foreign and his person was just as estranged.

They parked outside of the station and Etienne helped his son with his bags. As he watched the boy disappear through the solid stone he had to restrain himself from reaching out to him, chest tightening around his heart.

"Mon fils."

He knew he was talking to himself, left with his car, his son gone into the distance -- somewhere he could not follow. There was hardly anyone around who could see or hear him, though, and that was comforting.

"Et maintenant..." He bowed his head, sighing softly, running his fingers through his graying hair.

He still wore his wedding ring.

"Et maintenant, je suis seul," he murmured to no one at all.

After that, he turned and got in his car, driving home without the comforting but silent presence of his son beside him.

The platform was just as crowded as he remembered it to be. He recognized certain faces, of course, and was surprised that a few people even came up to him to say hello. There was something nagging and cruel in him that told him, however he was accepted by his peers, and his friends, they would shun him and hate him, if ever they knew what it was he _was_.

But they didn't.

And Remus would make sure that they _never_ would.

He stood by his suitcase, toying with the hem of his t-shirt. He was fully prepared to wait as long as he had last time; on a sudden whim, he took out the latest book he was reading and sat down on the edge of his suitcase, starting to read while he waited. Remus had just discovered Shakespeare, and was unable to put him down.

"Remus?" Startled halfway through the second scene of Hamlet, Remus turned around to face the owner of that familiar voice. The half-smile he flashed to people came easier to him, now, and it tugged lightly on his lips.

"Peter." The sandy haired boy flopped down beside Remus, smiling in return.

"How was your summer?" Peter questioned softly, wrapping his arms around his knees.

"It was all right," Remus replied, just as soft, head inclining to the side. "How was yours?" It was good to see any one of his friends again, and he did have a soft spot for downtrodden Peter Pettigrew, but he was still waiting eagerly for Sirius to arrive, late as always, loud as always.

"It was...all right, I guess," Peter murmured, shrugging, making a face. "Could've been better."

"Sorry."

"S'all right." Peter flashed a worn smile. "What're you reading?"

"Hamlet."

"S'Shakespeare, right?" It was at that moment that Severus Snape chose to sweep by them both, and pause to catch Remus eyes. That understanding passed between them, fleeting but strong as ever. Peter made a face when he had gone.

"Yes," Remus said quickly, before the other boy could insult the Slytherin, "it's Shakespeare."

"That's nice," Peter said dubiously, and the both of them fell silent, companionable, but waiting for the others to arrive.

Remus's senses were heightened, his nose sniffing for that scent he could recognize out of a million others. His eyes were narrowed slightly, scanning the crowd for that one figure racing through to him. His ears, had they been on the wolf, would have been cocked forward, waiting and listening intently.

It made sense, then, that he smelled and heard Sirius coming before he saw him, and stood just in time to be caught up right where he belonged, in Sirius's arms. 


	6. Chapter Five: Je Connais Un Homme

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**Chapter Five**:** Je Connais Un Homme  
What happens**: This chapter is about change, realizations, revelations -- and all that good stuff. Sirius, in other words, wakes up a little.  
**Main Characters**: Remus J. Lupin, Sirius Black  
**Subsidiary Characters**: James Potter, Lilly Evans, Peter Pettigrew; Severus Snape, Lucius Malfoy; Professor Voldemort, Professor McGonagall; Etienne Ibert  
**Couples You Will Find In This Fic (Whether You Like It Or Not)**: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin; James Potter/Lilly Evans; Severus wanting Remus's body; a hint or two of Lucius Malfoy/Severus Snape; other relationships of both a homosexual and heterosexual nature  
**Dedication**: This fic is dedicated to **Lins**, who continually **rekindles** my joy of **SiriusxRemus** whenever I am **losing** it.   
**This is**: **chapter four** of a **work in progress**. Like all my **works in progress**, it is possible that you will be **waiting** a **very long time** between **installments**, or they could come out **daily** in a **psychotic** and rather **frightening** fashion. **Do Not Worry**! Just take it **as it comes**, and feel free to send me **demanding fan mail **(all **demanding fan mail** should be sent to **IremusJLupin@aol.com**) if you feel you've been waiting **an egregiously long time**. **Demanding fan mail** is **annoying** sometimes, but on the whole it makes me feel **incredibly cool**. And **that's what it's all about**, right? **Oh yes**. And I am also **constantly updating** **chapters** that have already been **uploaded**, whenever I find a **hideous spelling error** or a **problem with grammar**. So check back **often**.  
**C&C**: is **demanded**. Or, you know, **desperately longed for**, in a rather **pathetic **sense. Just gimme some of that **good ol' fashioned R&R**, and let me know you actually do want to **see more of my work**.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

  
  
**Chapter Five: Je Connais Un Homme**

It was just as it should be. Warm and tight, the scents familiar, a grasp in which he felt protected, not smothered or threatened. His eyes closed and the two of them reveled in that natural closeness. It felt right, as if Remus was returning home after a long and tiring journey. They may not have known why it felt so good, so right, but they didn't need to, to revel in it. Remus felt fingers in his hair and an arm around his waist, a body taller than the one he remembered, but fundamentally the same, crushed against his own. It was what he had been missing the whole summer, returned to him at last. 

"Well," he said softly, voice muffled against Sirius's neck, "I missed you, too." 

"Shut up, Remus," Sirius's voice said, breath hot against his temple. 

"All right," Remus complied agreeably, eyes squeezing shut. The little vial of Moonshine he'd given to Sirius a year before was pressed between their chests, digging lightly into Remus's ribcage. A tiny thrill ran through him, to know Sirius was still wearing it. 

Sirius held Remus like that for a while, then tightened his arms suddenly before letting him go. Looking flushed and breathless, he ran his fingers through his black hair, which had gotten longer, Remus noticed, since last he'd seen it. They studied each other, taking in differences in appearance and noting with relieved fondness all the things that had not changed. Sirius, as Remus had previously noted, had grown taller by at least an inch and maybe even two, and his hair had grown, silky blue-black, down below his shoulders. His face had changed, was sun browned and older, but his smile and the glint in his dark blue eyes were the same as they'd always been. It was doubtful whether or not that aspect of Sirius Black would ever change. 

Remus, Sirius saw, had not grown, or at least not noticeably, and, as over the last summer, he had lost some of the weight eating at Hogwarts had put on him. His hair had gotten a little longer, and hung in uncombed glory around his unchanged face. On his neck, almost completely hidden by the collar of his t-shirt and his messy golden-brown hair, was the dark, bruised rosiness of a deep cut in that pale skin. Sirius felt himself frowning as he leaned forward, brushing Remus's hair back to reveal that surprising and unsettling marring of Remus's flesh. Remus's eyes widened in understanding, and then lowered, his whole body tensing in a wince. 

"You're-- you're hurt," Sirius said, unsure whether he should be angry or miserable. 

"Yes," Remus murmured, shadows hiding his eyes. 

"What happened?" Sirius was trying his best not to sound accusatory, trying to stay calm. But the thought of anyone doing this to his friend was making his blood boil uncontrollably. 

"It's nothing," Remus said quickly, soft but firm.   
  
"It's not nothing," Sirius protested, pulling his hand back. The volatile Black nature was impossible to control for too long. 

"Please, Sirius." Remus lifted his eyes suddenly to Sirius's face, and the anger seeped out of the taller boy, leaving him with a weak, terrible helplessness, and no words in his mouth. "It was an accident-- I was helping papa move a bookshelf, and one of the shelves fell. I was lucky it wasn't as bad as it could have been." 

"Remus" Their eyes met, blue on brown. Sirius sighed. "did it hurt too much?" 

"No," Remus murmured, relaxing in sheer relief, "not that much." 

"Sorry," Sirius whispered, reaching out to tuck Remus's hair back so that it still hid the cut. Both of them knew he wasn't apologizing for how much it hurt. Remus nodded, lifting up a hand of his own so that their fingers brushed together.

"Oh, bloody--" said another voice to their right, and both of them whirled around to find themselves face to face with James Potter. "The party's started without me. Some people have absolutely no manners." Sirius and Remus let go of each other's hands instinctively, and Peter stood from his awkward and slightly wistful spot as an observer. 

"Some people shouldn't get their arses to social gatherings so late," Sirius returned, grinning carelessly once more. Remus stepped to the side to stand next to Peter, flashing him an apologetic and helpless half-smile. Peter ducked his head down. People couldn't help it if they liked him less, cared about him less, than they did other people. 

"Some people simply can't help it if they get their arses caught in traffic," James protested, pretending still to be offended. 

"Some people spend a lot of time excusing their sorry arses rather than trying to make them less sorry," piped up a new voice, Lilly's, deeper than it had been the year before, more mature and with a melodiousness about it there hadn't been before. She certainly wasn't Ellen Abott, but she was getting there, pale red brown hair framing her changed face and accentuating her emerald green eyes, which were fringed with pleasantly long lashes. Nothing spectacular, but certainly, she was changed. James and Sirius both fell silent, and Peter froze where he was, even forgetting to breathe. 

"Hello, Lilly," Remus said, that half smile tugging at his lips. He was apparently the only boy there who hadn't been struck speechless. 

"Well - at least someone hasn't forgotten his manners," Lilly grinned, trotting forward to embrace Remus in a light hug. Both James and Sirius bristled, but for different reasons. "Have a nice summer, Remus?" 

"Mm. I did. How was yours?" Remus pulled back, noting silently that even Lilly was at least a half-inch taller than he. 

"It was all right." Lilly shrugged a bit, flashing another smile that left James feeling pathetically weak-kneed. It took a while for him to regain his voice. "My sister drives me mad, but I've learned to live with it." 

"You look different," James squeaked, "really good different." 

"Thank you," Lilly said brusquely, "we should get on the train." James's stomach did a flip-flop. 

"Right," he said and, in a moment of unforeseen and unexpected chivalry, took up Lilly's suitcase as well as his own. A look of surprise mixed with triumph and pleasure played over Lilly's face as she trotted along behind him, Peter following her in silent awe. Remus and Sirius turned to each other, Remus's eyes sparkling, Sirius bemused. 

"People do crazy things," Sirius said, shaking his head mock-mournfully. 

"Yes," Remus added wryly, "when they're so obviously in love." 

"Yeah," Sirius said, grinning. "C'mon." Before Remus could pick up his things, Sirius had done so for him, moving after the other three with both their bags in his hands. The sun got caught up in that long, dark hair and made it shine blue black. From behind, Remus could see the way a few locks were captured, dancing with the breeze. On Sirius, torn jeans and an old black t-shirt were worn like a fairytale prince's robes were. 

_"And the prince stood in the center of the forest, the sunlight on his hair. His eyes were dark and they heard the wolf-calls on the air. He longed to get down on all fours in the dirt and run as swift as the wind. All around him were the trees, but still he wanted only to be king." Dalila Lupin sang to her son a story, combing his hair with her delicate fingers._

Remus quickly shook his head to clear it and hurried to catch up with Sirius, the sunlight warming the shivering air. 

Snippets of conversations mingled with the clacking of the train speeding down the tracks as Remus walked through the cars with Sirius by his side, trying to make the bar of chocolate Sirius had bought him last. 

"--went to _France_ for a week, saw the most amazing" 

"--and you'd never _believe_ what he said, it was" 

"--father told me that _next_ year we'd all be going to" 

"--all right, but you can't tell a _single soul_" 

He and Sirius were silent because it was always best when they didn't speak at all, and just basked in the glow of their silence and the pleasantness they felt when they were together. Remus broke off another small piece of chocolate and placed it between his lips, the sweetness lingering, spreading out over his tongue. Beside him was Sirius, and they were very close in the narrowness of the corridor, shoulders, elbows and wrists brushing together. 

Their steps were equally paced. 

Remus wouldn't have been surprised if they were breathing together, with the same rhythm. 

"S'nice," Sirius murmured absently, "to be alone for a little while." 

"Mm," Remus agreed, nodding faintly in agreement. He felt merely comfortable with James, Lilly and Peter around. With just Sirius, he felt home. The two feelings were dissimilar, he'd mused, perhaps very slightly, but in the end it made all the difference. 

"We won't get to Hogwarts for a while," Sirius thought out loud, eyes roving so they would not inevitably fix upon Remus beside him, and end up staring. 

"No," Remus confirmed, "not for at least another half hour." Sirius lifted his arms above his head, stretching with a little yawn. From the corner of his eye, Remus watched him, glad for his messy hair, which obscured his face in shadow. 

"Hey - can't see you, like that," Sirius said after another few minutes of silence passed between them. He turned, and Remus stopped short as Sirius lifted his hand for the second time to brush those golden bangs from those deep brown eyes. Sirius's fingertips brushed over Remus's cheek and against his temple, over the back of his ear. Both of them stopped breathing for a moment, so acutely in tune with each other's internal rhythms. 

"Thank you," Remus said, so softly Sirius had to strain to hear it. 

"Just-wanna see you, that's all," Sirius replied, looking away, his hand still on Remus's face, cupping his cheek gently. 

"Oh," Remus said, immediately feeling stupid for having nothing better to say.   
  
"Haven't seen you-for a while." Sirius ducked his head down, though his eyes were still on Remus's face. 

"no," Remus managed, feeling stupider still. 

"Don't like-don't like seeing you hurt," Sirius continued, running his fingers down the side of Remus's cheek, towards the tear in his flesh, just begging to heal, on his neck. 

"It isn't anything important," Remus murmured, blinking slowly. They'd stopped walking and the minutes were either flying by or not passing at all. Time was confused, obviously, and just as bewildered as Remus himself was. 

"It is," Sirius said, "must've hurt." 

"Not really." Sirius rifled his fingers through Remus's hair, tucking it again behind his ear. 

"Must've," he insisted. 

"I'm used to it," Remus said quietly. "I'm-I'm clumsy, a lot of the time." 

"Should be more careful with yourself," Sirius said, his voice low and insistent, though he wasn't trying to push, and it came off as more a pleading tone than a demanding one. 

"I try," Remus said. Again, those fingers combing through his hair, fingertips against his scalp. Sirius was touching him. It was pleasant, to say the least, and while part of Remus adored the attention, part of him was desperate for it to stop. It was giving him too many ideas, and too many feelings, enough to overwhelm him. 

"Not hard enough," Sirius chided, without any vehemence. 

"Oh," Remus said again. Words were becoming ungraspable, confused in his mind, and every time he reached out to a sentence it floated away from his fingers. 

"Try harder," Sirius said softly. 

"All right," Remus promised. 

"How touching," a familiar voice said beside them, dark and mocking. Remus was shocked out of the world of Sirius's touch, and Sirius pulled back, a scowl replacing the fond, serious smile on his face. 

"Lucius," Sirius muttered darkly, fists clenching involuntarily at his sides as he placed himself between Remus and the blond boy. 

"Black," Lucius murmured, sniffing the air in displeasure. 

"Decide to get an early start on getting your ass kicked, this year?" The tension and the disgust that was evidently threaded through Sirius's muscles could be felt rippling in the air. Had Remus been in wolf form, he would have whimpered. 

"No - in truth, I thought I smelled something terrible, and I came to see if the mudbloods had gotten on the train yet." Lucius could look down at anyone -- even on Sirius, who was an inch taller than he. 

"Lucius, you've been sitting in your own stench for so long it's a wonder you can smell anything," Sirius hissed, fists tightening. Remus reached out a hand, touching his shoulder lightly. 

"Don't," he said, but neither Sirius nor Lucius heard him. From behind Lucius, Severus shrugged lightly, almost apologetic, and Remus bowed his head in defeat. There was no stopping Lucius and Sirius, once they got started. Both Severus and Remus knew enough to stand clear and let the flames flare up, and then flicker out. 

"Black, one of these days--" Sirius cut Lucius off quickly, drawing himself up to his full height, looking quite impressive and almost terrifying. 

"One of these days you're gonna fight for yourself, and I just may die of shock," Sirius said. "C'mon, Remus. He doesn't have his hired help with him -- he's just blowing it out of his ass." Lucius's face turned a light shade of red, and his eyes grew dark with rage. 

"Sirius Black--" 

"Right, right, you know my name," Sirius drawled lazily, taking Remus's hand in his own as he turned his back to the two Slytherins. "I don't have time for this. Go bother someone else with your dirty presence." Sirius's fingers twined tight with Remus's own, their palms pressed together. Remus's hand was cold but Sirius's was warm; Remus's fingers were delicate and slim, and Sirius's were less graceful and more strong, power and passion behind them.

Lucius turned to the dark-haired boy beside him once Sirius and Remus had left, face twisted with anger. Severus, watching Lucius's ice blue eyes flash with a rare passion, felt oddly and unusually breathless. This was why he stood by the boy so faithfully for so long. It was this conviction, this strength, that he admired so in the blond. It was not his beliefs that Severus was in awe of, but the power and the will exerted behind them. 

"His kind," Lucius snapped suddenly, "is what we are working so hard to get rid of." 

_But he's so much like you_, Severus realized at that moment. 

"Yes," Severus murmured, running his fingers nervously through his hair. He was terrified of Lucius Malfoy, and that terror was practically intoxicating. 

"I refuse to let people such as Sirius Black and that revolting Remus Lupin pollute our school," Lucius went on, graceful hands clenched into fists. He made a beautiful picture. Severus felt his heart ache, just looking at him. If only the seeds planted from youth in Lucius's mind had been different ones. His nature was formidable and breathtaking. It was the nurture that had been, and still was, lacking. 

And all the damage was already done. 

"Let's just go," Severus ventured, reaching out to Lucius's arm. Such a motion was encouraged by the jealousy he felt doubly at the way Sirius and Remus had left hand in hand, first at the affection shared unconditionally between them, and second at the intense worship in Remus's depthless eyes. At the touch, Lucius started, nearly jumping with surprise. Those blue eyes fixed on Severus's face, and the dark-haired boy noticed the blond's lower lip was trembling. 

"Right," Lucius said finally, his eyes startled but thoughtful. They had a light Severus had never seen before prismed in their crystalline depths, as if for the very first time he was looking at Severus, and not directly through him. 

"Right," Severus echoed, not knowing whether he should be afraid or excited by all that look entailed. 

Voldemort had been having afternoon tea in his office, but he had finished his cucumber sandwiches, and he had stopped drinking his tea. In the bottom of his cup the tea leaves shifted lazily, half melted sugar making the liquid look murky and, in turn, the future seemed clouded over. 

A little smile played over the professor's face. 

In looking at the tea leaves, Voldemort knew five things, and he was smiling not at what they were, but at the fact that he knew them. 

First: His days as a professor at Hogwarts were soon to be over. It was not clear whether or not he would last the rest of the year. 

That, he knew, could be expected. For a long while he had waited to see such a prediction in the bottom of his teacup, and now that it had come, it was of no importance. One era was ended, one stage over. That only heralded the start of the next. There was no need to mourn the passing of something, for what was the end to some was just the beginning to others.

Second: Remus Lupin would never come to him, of his own free will or otherwise. The boy's convictions were strong. 

That, too, he had known, and still knew. There was a determination in Remus's small body that was unseen and unspoken and that made it all the more powerful. It was a pity, for Voldemort had liked the boy -- truly liked him, as he liked so few people. He had liked him for his modesty, and the silent way he attacked those things he wanted to defeat. Going at them quietly, so that they barely noticed, or barely understood, what had suddenly happened to them. 

Third: He was going to have to kill at least two of his students. 

This was the first bit of news that was most definitely unforeseen, and the tea leaves were being very kind to him for revealing something so very far into the future. It was a bit of a shame, he had to admit, but what must be done, must be done. Voldemort did not discriminate amongst those he simply had to kill. It was an equal opportunity sort of thing, and it was very simple when he didn't think about it too much.

Fourth: The two students he was going to have to kill were James Potter and Lilly Evans. 

This, too, he had not known, but as the tea leaves arranged and rearranged themselves in the remnants of the steeped and flavorful tea water, he knew that it must be so. Whether or not he killed them with his own hands was superfluous. They needed to die, and he needed to engineer such an eventuality for their deaths to seem plausible. 

Fifth: He was to find an unexpected ally in the less-than-formidable form of Peter Pettigrew. 

The boy was quiet and completely ordinary. He was so ordinary that, next to Sirius Black and James Potter, he seemed to be a mere part of the woodwork, as special as a desk or a chair. That was very intriguing, Voldemort mused to himself, staring thoughtfully at the teacup in his hands. Truly, he had thought the boy nothing even remotely interesting. Not a factor. To be overlooked. That, he realized, was a talent not very many people had. Fantastic.   
  
Voldemort set his teacup down on the desk before him. 

"Oh my," the professor murmured softly. He propped his arms up on his desk and his chin on his folded hands, and buried himself pleasantly in thought.

There was Lucius Malfoy, close-minded and foolish, but with just enough passion so that he wasn't entirely useless. The blond was driven by an inner strength that Voldemort couldn't help but admire, and was loath to lose. He would prove to be a decent ally, though Voldemort did not think he particularly liked the boy.

There was the young Malfoy's friend, Severus Snape, Cyril Snape's boy. The future that involved him was just as shadowed and unreadable as the boy's dark and somewhat sullen eyes. Voldemort could only theorize about how the Snape boy would factor in to all of his complicated equations, and therefore was wary to place too much stock in Lucius's assurances of his loyalty.

There was James Potter, who didn't matter anymore, because Voldemort was going to kill him.

There was Lilly Evans, who had never mattered much anyway, and mattered even less now because Voldemort was going to kill her, as well.

There was Remus Lupin, who had for a while been so important and so desired, but lacking him, Voldemort's plans had changed and Remus was no longer even wanted, much less necessary. Still, Voldemort had to admit the boy was quite spectacular, and he was vaguely disappointed not to have him as an ally, or simply as a friend. If it ever came to killing Remus Lupin, Voldemort would have been fleetingly dismayed, but would not have lost much sleep over the matter.

There was also Sirius Black. It was not exigent to kill him, but he did need to get rid of him at some point or another, to make things flow smoothly. It was not, Voldemort knew, the mark of a true professional to leave loose ends like Sirius Black lying around unattended.

There was lastly Peter Pettigrew, previously overlooked and now growing as a noteworthy presence in Voldemort's constantly changing plans. Voldemort was incredibly pleased to be able to make him so wonderfully useful because he rather liked irony, and taking the quiet, introspective boy under his wing would amuse him for many years on into the future.

Yes, Voldemort thought to himself, life was a joke, and though it was quite complicated, it was shaping up to be a very good one.

Remus felt the most comfortable when he was burrowed into the downy and private embrace of the cloud-soft Hogwarts canopy bed he thought of as his own. His third year would start the next morning, bright and early, and he couldn't wait for it. He and Sirius had stayed up for a while talking, and then they had retired to their respective beds for the night so they would be ready for the day to come.

It did not take Remus long to fall asleep, as it would have any other boy his age. He drifted off into a pleasant and dreamless sleep, until the early morning, when he began to see things, playing in a confused but urgent dance over the backs of his eyelids:

He was in the middle of a dark forest. There were shadows all around him. He had a pack...

He was running, free at last to chase shadows on the earth. There was a heavy form with a familiar scent running beside him. They were racing each other. He had a packmate...

He was alone. There was the mournful and solitary shape of the moon suspended in the sky above him. He was human and he was miserable, and he wanted so badly to lift his head and howl out his despair...

On one side of him was Severus Snape, figure shadowy and dark. His profile was outlined in the weak light. "Stand back," he said, his voice echoing in Remus's ears. From the folds of his robes he produced a wand. There was a bright flash of light. "Avada kedavra!" said Severus's voice from behind the white and blinding illumination...

On his other side was Sirius. The bright light had faded once again into darkness. His countenance seemed old, too old, and then he could not even make out the features on his friend's face. "I," Sirius said, and then he fell immediately and terribly silent...

Voldemort was in front of him, tall and terrifying. The man had changed, seemed inhuman, was like a cobra raised up and ready to strike. Remus was defenseless before him, without a weapon, without a wand in his hand. "I never wanted to kill you, you know," Voldemort said, and his green eyes were as terrifying as a chamber that was filled with nothing but mirrors, and Remus's own horrified expression...

And then, there was nothing more chilling than knowing he was alone...

And Remus was nothing more than that...

And he cried out but even he himself could not hear it, and no one came to rescue him.

His eyes snapped open. In his chest, his heart was pounding hard and fast enough to split his ribcage in half. Sun filtered through his bed-curtains. There was nothing better than waking from a nightmare, and thus destroying all its previously impossible power.

In the pale, early morning light, Remus slipped out of his bed, and began to ready himself for class.

The school was alive with whispers. Remus couldn't take a step forwards or backwards without passing by a cluster of three or four students in heated but hushed discussions.

All classes for the day had been canceled. All the teachers had gathered in Dumbledore's office.

"The say it's Professor Voldemort," one girl was whispering to another, "and that he's done something _really_ bad."

"I hear," the girl's friend replied, cheeks flushed with the gossip, "he _killed_ a student!"

"That's crazy," a boy standing with them muttered, giving them both superior looks. "He's being accused of _corruption_, or something like that. They're going to bloody kick him out. S'what I heard."

"Can't kick him out," the first girl said dubiously, looking between both her friends. "I mean. That sort of thing -- it's never happened before." They were all three of them silent for a moment.

"Never needed to happen before," the boy said after a while, nodding firmly. Remus moved on. Bits of conversations floated in one ear and out the other. He never trusted gossip.

"...and they said he was doing all sorts of things down in the potions room..."

"...tried to kill Professor McGonagall yesterday, _I_ heard..."

"...went mad last night and it took four professors to restrain him..."

"...saw Dumbledore, he was mad as hell, think he was _bleeding_..."

"...never heard anything like it..."

"...never seen anything like it..."

"...what d'you suppose this all could be...?"

"...well, what _I _heard from Sean Wood is that there's been this great bloody mess, all the professors are involved..."

Remus lowered his head, plowing through the crowded hallways and the thick air pregnant with gossip, tension and breathless curiosity.

"Remus," Sirius hissed, reaching out from a doorway, grasping his friends arm, "have you heard what's happened?" Sirius eyes were bright with excitement.

"More or less," Remus murmured, but Sirius was too distracted to catch the dryness in his tone. Instead of commenting, the taller boy dragged Remus into an empty classroom, where James, Lilly and Peter were seated on the desks.

"What've you heard?" James asked, hushed and breathless.

"A lot," Remus said.

"You know what it is, it's _conspiracy_," James continued, as if he'd never asked Remus a question, or even thought of hearing an answer. "A conspiracy against the school, against the entire _world_. It's insane, that's what it is. Insane."

"Calm down for a moment," Lilly said, without any conviction, "just calm down." She seemed as excited by all of this as James was, though, and Remus resigned himself to being the only one whose life wasn't suddenly revolving around this unanticipated scandal.

"I heard," Peter said, eyes glowing, cheeks pink, "that he was caught teaching a student the Cruciatus curse, and Dumbledore's absolutely furious." That was the first theory that made any sense at all, though Remus couldn't see Voldemort being that careless, unless he had been so intentionally.

"Who cares," Sirius said, even though he was on the edge of his seat (or desk), "it's a day off of school. Unheard of in the entire history of Hogwarts!"

"I think firing a teacher is a little more important than that," Lilly said, though she still looked excited for all she was trying to be above such immaturity.

"We don't know that they're firing him," Remus said softly.

"How couldn't they?" James exclaimed. "He taught a student the _Cruciatus curse_."

"We don't exactly know he did that, either," Remus pointed out, swinging himself up onto Sirius's desk, beside his friend.

"Come on, Remus," Sirius said, frowning half-heartedly, "live a little."

"I just don't see Professor Voldemort being so careless as to get himself fired," Remus said. The other four were silent, thinking this over.

"He's right," James said at last, "the man's brilliant. He's not about to go getting himself kicked out of such a position unless he _wants_ to."

"It really _doesn't_ make sense, does it," Lilly mused.

"Who knows," Sirius said, though he looked quite doubtful of the theory himself, "maybe Dumbledore's just too smart for him." 

"Maybe," Peter said, pursing his lips in thought.

"We'll just have to wait," Lilly said, resigning herself. The excitement seemed dull, at the prospect of sitting around all day without learning anything new.

"So," Sirius said, and then all of them were silent for a short while that seemed painfully long. Peter stared from his hands to the ceiling, almost feeling time limping by him. James and Lilly stole secret glances of each other, fidgeting nervously though their minds were elsewhere. Sirius got up from the desk and began to pace for a while, brows knit together in annoyance, mind writhing with impatience. With one knee pulled up to his chest, Remus buried himself in troubled thoughts, wishing he had a book to keep him otherwise occupied.

It was more than strange, Remus mused. It was just wrong. All his instincts were telling him so. Deep in the back of his brain, he thought he could smell a rat. "I," Remus began, but it was then that Ellen Abott threw the door to the classroom open, breathless and wild and lovely.

"They've come out of his office," she cried, "and Dumbledore's fired Professor Voldemort!" The tension in the room was cut in half, and then returned doubly strong.

"Why?" Sirius had crossed the room to her side in an instant. The way she was looking at him made Remus's gut clench miserably.

"Nobody knows," Ellen Abott said quickly, "but he's packing his things now."

"Why didn't you come sooner?" Sirius lamented.

"I only just found out! If we hurry, we might be able to see him before he -- oh, come on!" She grabbed Sirius's hand and the both of them raced out. Spurred at last into action, James and Lilly hurried after them, Peter right behind.

A silent, motionless minute passed. Remus could hear muffled exclamations from the hallways outside the classroom.

He slipped down from where he sat.

"Why did you do it?" he asked the air, knowing somehow, Voldemort would hear it. There was no answer. Remus cleared his throat and repeated his question again, louder. "Why did you do it?"

"Je ne sais pas," Voldemort said, shutting the door politely behind him.

"Vous savez," Remus replied. Voldemort smiled.

"Tu ne comprendrais pas." Voldemort set down two suitcases he had been carrying and folded his hands before him. He stood very straight. There was no lack of confidence in his manner.

"Pourquoi etes-vous ici?" Remus forced himself to look at the man straight on.

"Parce que...parce que je reponds toujours aux questions." A moment of understanding passed between them, silence hesitant and afraid of being broken.

"Et parce qu'on ne sait que ce qu'on a vu," Remus added. Voldemort threw his head back and laughed. It was not the laugh of a madman. It was the laugh of a perfectly normal human being enjoying a very good joke. That was what made it all the more terrible: knowing you should be afraid of him, but not able to put your finger on why.

"Tu sais les choses que les adultes ne savent pas," Voldemort murmured, when he had finished laughing. "Vraiment, tu es un savant."

"C'est faux." Neither did Remus know why he was being so stubborn, defending himself against the compliments this man paid him. "Votre nom," he murmured after a moment, eyes fixed on Voldemort's pale face, "quel est votre nom?"

"Voldemort," Voldemort replied.

"Non," Remus pressed. "Tout."

"Liam d'Or Voldemort," Voldemort said finally. 

"Je n'ai pas confiance en l'or. C'est faux, aussi. Ce n'est pas important." Shrugging lightly, Voldemort leaned down to pick up his bags again, signaling his termination of their conversation.

"Bien," he said softly, "au revoir."

"J'espere que c'est 'adieu'."

"Au revoir," Voldemort repeated.

"Au revoir," Remus replied.

Voldemort left behind him an emptiness that seemed at first to be a chill in the hollows of the air. It was easily mistakable for the bite of fear, but Remus realized immediately that it was just the mere discomfort at the feeling of hollowness the ex-professor radiated. The air he passed through was left hollow. The words he spoke were hollow. His eyes and the passion he pretended to portray were hollow. There was nothing of weight in all of him.

It was as if, if you took your eyes off of him for a moment, he could simply disappear, and leave you wondering whether or not he'd ever been there at all.

And he had not said, 'to God.' He had barely even said 'goodbye.'

He had said, 'until we meet again.'

Remus frowned, but it was not in anger, just in thought. The man left him feeling pensive and unsure of himself, that hollowness creeping throughout him and leaving him more than just mildly unsettled. Voldemort was absent of his body, much too powerful for it. Perhaps the man did not deem it necessary. Remus didn't even want to think about that, though he felt it was impossible not to wonder.

_Au revoir._

Until we meet again.

It seemed - no, it was - more of a threat than a parting of ways.

Rubeus Hagrid felt the school grounds grow cold, but it was not with anger, nor was it with misery. It took him a few moments to gauge what it was he felt, what it was the world was feeling, and when he at last managed it, his blood ran cold.

It had nothing to do with passion.

It was with indifference.

The sky was blue and bright above him, clouds stretched and pulled by the wind until so that they were light and unable to block out the cheeriness of the sun above. The day had been beautiful, until this shiver swept over him, and left his big hands feeling powerless and dwarfed.

It was not a time for gardening, he realized, kneeling in the warm earth, digging up weeds without minding when dirt collected beneath his stubby fingernails.

The earth was crying out in protest against this lack of caring.

"Cor," Rubeus Hagrid said, and hurried to get inside, as if the whole world and all that inhabited it had gotten the premonition of a storm, and the best course of action to take was running pell-mell for shelter.

"He's gone," Lucius said softly. It was the closest to truly upset Severus had ever seen his friend, and had he not been secretly relieved by Voldemort's departure, he would have felt slightly bad for the blond. Lucius was used to getting his way. Lucius was used to things going just how he wanted them to. In this case, all his conceptions of the way the world revolved had been shattered.

"Sorry," Severus said, looking up from his notes. Lucius's eyes were wild and grasping for some truths to hold on to. Severus felt chill after chill race down the center of his spine.

"Voldemort -- he must have wanted it this way," Lucius insisted, arguing with no one at all. His eyes were snapping that cold fire, his hands set on the table before him in elegant but dangerous fists.

"I'm sure," Severus agreed. That thought, though frightening, was forcing its way into Severus's thoughts in a rather aggravatingly insistent fashion, and he couldn't seem to shove it aside.

"They must have played right into his hands."

"Right." Severus wanted to be admired the way he admired Lucius, the way Lucius admired the ex-professor. He wanted those blue eyes, alight with the thought of him.

"Because there's no other explanation," Lucius murmured, shaking his head and shaking Severus from his foolish and unrealistic reverie, "because he's too smart for them. He's always been too smart for them. No one - no one can ever get the better of him."

"No," Severus said quickly, "no one can."

Though he was quick to agree with all Lucius said, Severus could only hope his friend was wrong, even though he was almost completely sure he was right. With a little shiver, feeling as if someone had just stepped onto his future grave, Severus buried his nose in his work, and refused to think about such things any longer.  
  


The new potions teacher was not a overly-liked man but he was certainly more ordinary than Professor Voldemort had been. Basil St. Hemlock was aging but wiry with passion for all he had to teach, and though Remus's desire to learn the art of potions-making had dwindled into nothing a long while back, he at least no longer had to dread every time he had the subject.

Professor Hemlock was a miserable disappointment to the third year Slytherins -- for after two whole years being favored by a professor of the same house, they were suddenly faced with a Ravenclaw professor, who favored neither the Slytherins or the Gryffindors he was teaching jointly.

That meant for a lot less trouble between Sirius and Lucius, at least, and for that Remus was grateful. Professor Hemlock refused to allow any bickering in his classroom. After a while, the two boys learned somehow to restrain themselves, and keep their arguments to the hallways, or in the classes of less observant and less strict teachers.

Dumbledore was the most happy with his choice of new professors, and valued the elderly man as not just a teacher, but as a friend and a comrade, as well. There was a worrying, nagging presence in the back of Dumbledore's mind that spoke of events soon to come -- he only had slight glimpses of them, fleeting images and snippets of dialogue, but what he had so far seen was enough to keep him up at nights. With Basil St. Hemlock and Minerva McGonagall, he would take short walks around the Hogwarts grounds, asking for advice, or simply cultivating a discussion, between the other two.

"We are on the brink of something terrible," Hemlock murmured to himself, shaking his head.

"The sooner we deal with him, the better," McGonagall said quickly, holding herself against the chill of the breeze. Winter was coming, no matter how they longed for the warmth of summer to last.

"Nip the bud in the head," Dumbledore said, and he thought suddenly of roses.

"But he's disappeared," Hemlock said, for the fifth time that day, "we've lost our chance. For now."

"Which means time is no longer on our side," McGonagall mourned, fists clenching in futile anger.

"Something must be done," Dumbledore acknowledged, "and though I may regret this later -- it cannot be done yet. The time will come," he went on to keep McGonagall from protesting immediately, "for us to act. Voldemort has poured time, effort and faith into the next generation. He has not done this on a whim -- he would not waste his time with anything he deemed unimportant. Therefore, he must have seen something we did not. We must do as he did. The future battle lies in the hands of our children. We must do as Voldemort did, and cultivate our students, teach them and trust them. This is the single most important course of action that we can ever take." The light wind rustled the leaves in the trees. Dumbledore caught his breath, having fallen silent.

"I wish there were more we could do for the world they will inherit," McGonagall murmured, tone hushed and somber.

"All we can do is trust them," Hemlock said, agreeing with Dumbledore, "and hope we live to see the day they triumph."

"Here," Remus said, resting his hand atop Sirius's to still it, "if you stir it too fast, you'll keep the ingredients from mixing properly." Sirius groaned and once again let Remus take over.

"We've been waiting to get this potion right for hours, now," Sirius whined, flopping back dehectedly in his chair.

"If we hadn't been so careless with the other potion this morning, we wouldn't be here right now," Remus explained with inhuman patience, "and it's barely been a half hour, yet. I'd hate to see how you'd be in, for instance, jail." A tiny, almost imperceptible smirk flickered over Remus's features, and Sirius shot him a dirty look.

"Hemlock's just mad 'cause we set his sleeves on fire," Sirius muttered, "and it's not like it was on purpose, or anything."

"Mm," Remus said, looking over at Sirius dryly, stirring the cauldron dutifully, "and you can't possibly see why he'd be angry that James and I had to put him out with our Potions books."

"I can see where he'd be upset," Sirius said vaguely, not meeting Remus's eyes, "but not where he'd have to make us do it over and over and over until we kill ourselves, or get it right."

"We've almost got it," Remus sighed, "it won't be too much longer, now." Secretly, he enjoyed this - enjoyed spending the extra time with just Sirius, the both of them alone together. Despite the tedious work and the heat from the bubbling cauldron, Remus thought it was rather nice.

"Mh," Sirius grunted, but he fell silent, closing his eyes. They didn't even have to pretend he was doing any work, anymore. If he helped, he'd only make a mess, and they both wanted to get the punishment project over as soon as possible. "So," Sirius said finally, breaking the silence, "your birthday's coming up, isn't it?" He kept his eyes closed, watching more interesting things on the backs of his eyelids. He'd managed to pry the date out of Remus after a full month of trying. Remus was, in Sirius's supposedly vast experience, nothing at all like a girl. He was literally terrified of getting presents.

"Yes," Remus said, "January twenty-fourth. Sirius," Remus went on quickly, before he could lose the nerve, before Sirius could interrupt him, "my father said -- this summer -- I could invite any friend over to stay with me, for a while."

"Yes," Sirius said.

"I didn't even ask you, yet."

"Yes," Sirius repeated, and the two boys caught each other's eyes. Sirius had been dating Paavana Patil for a month and still he knew Remus's eyes better than hers. Little flecks of amber in that deep, earthy brown. Lashes that were dark, but golden when the sunlight caught them. A wisdom buried inside. A sadness that Sirius couldn't understand, and wanted so badly to take away. An understanding of Sirius himself that even Sirius didn't have. There was fear there, as well, and Sirius knew that he would protect this boy from from whatever it is made that dark spot of fear murk up the depths of his eyes.

"Good," Remus murmured.

"You're letting the potion boil over," Sirius said suddenly, and Remus pulled his attention away from his relief and his friend and back to the safer area of calculations and magic and schoolwork. His heart, he realized, had been pounding, and his hands had grown cold. They didn't tremble -- they never trembled -- but they had come close to doing so.

"For how long?" Sirius asked, as Remus got the potion back under control once more.

"A week, a week and a half at most, he said."

"You tell him I'm coming?"

"I'll write him tonight."

And Sirius settled back and thought how easy and how hard at once it was to predict everything that Remus did, and how he was going to look forward to summer, this year. 

And Remus was fighting off a little wave of happiness that bubbled up from deep within him, in the place that said _there is nothing to fear_.

And if Dumbledore could have seen them -- awkward, clumsy in boyhood, coming into manhood, moving around each other but slowly orbiting closer and closer -- he would not have known anything other than that this, and the tentative bonds that were blossoming between the two of them, was strong enough for any man to trust. 

Shyness, hesitation, were keeping them apart, but something instinctual and animal in nature was drawing them together. Deep down inside him, Remus could feel it. On the edges of his senses, Sirius could feel it, too.

It was something they could not resist, because they did not truly want to resist it.

Rubeus Hagrid, assistant groundskeeper, scratched thoughtfully at the area that was probably his chin, but was hidden by the great bulk of brown beard he was growing. "Roses, roses," he murmured softly to himself, seeming to be thinking aloud, "what sort of roses is it, then, that you're wantin'?" There was a long silence, and then,

"Dunno," Sirius said, fidgeting a little. Hagrid's 'greenhouse' was just an entire room of his cottage, heated to a terrifying humidity and filled with tubs that overflowed with soil and plants. (Once, when asked why he had filled an entire room with bathtubs, dirt and fertilizer, Hagrid had replied, and cheerfully to boot, "I like gardenin'." And no one had pushed the question any further.)

"Are they roses f'r a girl?" Hagrid asked, after looking Sirius up and down and attempting to size up his entire character. It wasn't a guess too far off base, and Sirius was used to such assumptions about him. After all, he had purposely cultivated such an image, and so it was best always to play along with someone's first impression of him. He'd take them by surprise later.

"Yeah," Sirius said, grinning faintly to himself, running his fingers through his hair to keep it out of his eyes. Hagrid looked him up and down again, breaking into a grin behind his beard.

"I see, I see," he murmured, eyes sparkling beneath bushy eyebrows. He looked, Sirius thought, like a big shaggy circus bear who was suddenly eager to please, but was clumsy and awkward in his shuffling, comical movements.

"For a birthday present," Sirius added helpfully.

"How 'bout a dozen roses?" Hagrid suggested, rifling through packets of muggle and wizard seeds alike, stored in a drawer that was also growing three varieties of venus fly traps. They seemed, however, to like him, allowing the big man to get near without snapping at his mammoth hands. "I hear that's very popular."

"Tootoo usual," Sirius said, after a moment, poking through some of the less dangerous looking foliage. A fuzzy leaf here, a glossy petal there, and every once in a while stumbling across a jewel-like beetle or two burrowing through the wet dirt, into the roots.

"Right," Hagrid agreed quickly, "everyone's been doing it. Hm," he went on, brow furrowing up with deep thought creases, "I heard nice muggle red is very romantic." Hagrid produced a seed packet from underneath a few others and held it up to display the picture on the front. For a few moments, Sirius studied the picture, thinking the idea over. A single red rose. Romantic, as Hagrid had said, but it wouldn't last. Too easily, Sirius mused, the beauty of the rose would fade, and the petals would dry up, and then Remus would be left with nothing.

"No," Sirius said at last, "but closer." There was sweat beneath his eyes and on his upper lip. The air was too heavy and too wet for him to even breathe.

"'Ow about a Black Rose, then?" Hagrid suggested next. "They ain't usual, certainly, and they're gettin' t'be more popular'n I ever thought they would be. Bein' such an odd color."

"Thought of as rare?" Sirius lingered on the possibility for longer, because of its rarity, but decided against it for the same reason he had against a regular single rose. Too fleeting. He wanted his gift to last.

"Guess not then, eh?" Hagrid read the boy's dubious expression well. "All right -- what about a Blue Rose of Forgetfulness? I've been working on one f'r a while, an' the color's gotten jus' right, finally. 'Ere, I'll show you." With one huge and harmless hand he beckoned to Sirius, and showed him a line of young, blue blooms the color of bruises and midnight skies.

Sirius thought immediately of the dark sadness in Remus's eyes. 

In their pots, the roses seemed to be singing mournfully, trembling with memory on the thick air.

"Is it better, d'you think, to remember, or to forget?" Sirius questioned the assistant groundskeeper, very softly. Hagrid looked at him, half pensive and half just plain confused.  
  
"Don' know, really," he said finally, shrugging his broad shoulders lightly. "Can' say. They're...pretty roses, 'n any case."

"Perhaps -- it's best to remember, most of the time and then -- have moments, where you can forget?" Hagrid looked at Sirius blankly, blinking a few times, and then his mustache and beard moved faintly. Sirius had to assume that he was smiling beneath it.

"Guess," Hagrid said, "it's jus' best t'have th' choice, t'make it for yourself."

"You're right," Sirius said, fingering a bruised but velvety petal.

"Y'want one, then?" Hagrid looked between Sirius as the six blue blossoms, expectant and pleased with himself. They swayed lightly, humming in despair, beautiful for their absolute misery.

"Yes," Sirius decided finally, "but I need it for -- for more'n a month from now. For January." Hagrid beamed, the brightness not dulled one bit by the shaggy mane of his beard.

"Can make a special one f'r you," Hagrid said, "now that I know what I'm doin' with 'em."

"Could you?" Sirius couldn't help but grin back, the man looked so bloody cheerful. 

"It'd be my pleasure," Hagrid murmured solemnly. He reached out a hand, and Sirius took it, his own dwarfed against that vast palm. They shook on it, as if it were a deal well done. The Blue Roses of Forgetfulness strained against the roots which kept them firmly planted in the dirt, bound to the soil. They were lovely, an aching loveliness, more profound than Sirius could hope to comprehend. All he knew was that when he looked at them, his heart felt as if it were drowning. 

All he knew was the emotion that swelled up behind his ribcage, at their soft, sad song.

It was, he mused, like looking at Remus. He knew he felt things. He just couldn't put a name on those feelings - didn't have the capacity, or at least the knowledge, to understand them fully. Understanding, though, would make the feelings less beautiful, less wonderfully strange. If he knew what the roses sang of, it would not be so deeply touching or moving a song.

"...an' so what date should I have it ready by?" Sirius was suddenly made aware of the fact that Hagrid had continued talking, even as the roses' song had dragged him into another world of thought, and he turned his face away to hide the flush that came over it.

"What?" Sirius lifted his eyes from the flowers, all the way up Hagrid's face. "Sorry -- didn't catch that."

"When will you be wantin' th' flower ready?"

"January twenty-third," Sirius said, figuring that he couldn't kill the thing in one day. He'd be careful with it. Really. It was for Remus, and he took that more seriously than most things.

"You 'ave my word for it," Hagrid said.

And the roses sang softly beneath their petals, water hanging like tears on the heavy air.  
  


In the winter the snow came, white and soft. The nights became a pale, icy blue and the days were spent in gratefulness for the warmth of the indoors. 

It was the sort of season where swift kisses meant more than long ones, and everyone felt naked, despite their heavy winter robes. 

It was the sort of season meant for birth and rebirth, despite the barren trees and the icy frost.

It was not the sort of season one spent alone.

On one firelit and starlit evening James Potter and Lilly Evans shared their first kiss, and their second soon after, then their third right after that. They weren't particularly skilled kisses but they felt very good, nonetheless. Afterwards, the winter seemed less cold and the world less vast, and the snow blanketed ground was more comforting than desolate.

For those with the misfortune to be lonely during that winter, the world was a sullen, frigid tundra, icy and unforgiving. For those lucky enough to spend the chilly hours with those close to them, the world was a lovely secret, unsolved mysteries making the air sweet and exotic.

There was one mystery, though, that lingered in the back of Sirius's mind, turning his thoughts sour when he was careless enough to let it surface in his consciousness. It turned good days bitter and good dreams foul.

And on one December night, when the moon was full and powerful in the sky, and the darkness was more black than blue, and most of the other students had returned home for the holidays, and Remus had made a feeble excuse and disappeared, Sirius lay awake in his bed staring at the ceiling and tried unsuccessfully to fight down the overwhelming sense of impossible wrongness surging up within him.

He was angry.

First of all, he was angry with Remus. He was angry at him for disappearing like this, for being the way he was so that Sirius couldn't help but be terrified that something was wrong, for making Sirius so confused and so panic stricken and so unable to confront him for fear of losing him.

Secondly, he was angry with himself. He was angry at himself for being so helpless, for being so weak, for being so quick to jump to conclusions that made his heart race and his stomach clench into miserable knots. He was angry at himself because he had never felt so useless and unnecessary in all his life.

It would have been nice to blame Remus for this, but in the end he knew it was his own fault entirely. And that just made him angrier.

What right did Remus have to keep secrets from him? He _was_ keeping secrets -- Sirius saw it in the way he turned his eyes to the ground and turned his face to the side, not looking anyone directly in the eye as he made his excuses. What right did Remus have to lie to him, tell him things that weren't true? And they _weren't_ true, he knew by the way Remus stood when he told them, his body at an angle to Sirius's body, as if he didn't want to have to lie but forced himself to anyway because the alternative was far less pleasant. Perhaps it was even that thing he feared, that lurked nastily in the back of his wonderfully sad eyes. The part that angered Sirius the most was the thought that Remus did not trust him. Whatever secret it was that Remus was hiding, whatever fear Remus harbored of it being discovered, should not have applied to Sirius. 

Sirius wanted to know everything, but he was left without any clues, guessing and grasping at straws and coming up empty-handed every time. 

He was out of control in the one place he wanted to feel secure.

He knew all he had to do was wait until morning, and then Remus would return. There would be bandages on his wrists, sometimes more bandages hiding bruises on his arms and cuts on his face -- and God only knew where else. It was possible, Sirius had mused, that Remus went off and hurt himself, methodically, causing those rents and defilements in his own flesh. There seemed to be no other explanation for it, but Sirius could not bring himself to believe it.

_Why would he do that?_

His mind was struggling. He was struggling. There were pieces that didn't fit, things that he didn't understand.

All he had to do was wait for morning, but he had never been patient. After a while of anxious boredom, he fell asleep. 

_In his dreams he was trying to tell Remus something, chasing after him desperately, but Remus's back was to him, and he couldn't reach the other boy, no matter how fast he ran to catch up. Behind him his footprints were swallowed up by the snow, and he was aware of his own mortality, disappearing into the dark night._

When Sirius woke, Remus was in his own bed, curled up and fast asleep. Both arms, including the palms of his hands, were bandaged up to his elbows. A bit of cotton had been secured with band-aids to his swollen right cheekbone. His chest rose and fell shallowly beneath the quilt, pulled up underneath his armpits.

The way his hair fell, pooled back from his face, allowed Sirius to see without getting too close the entire story of Remus's face.

There was scar tissue underneath one ear, paler than the other, smooth skin. It was a little puckering of flesh that pulled his skin a little too tight right beneath his earlobe, which was not unmarred, either. It looked as if the baby-soft flesh had at some point been torn at by something sharper than human teeth, ripping it in half. It had been healed, but there was a thin scar line running up the center, easily perceived in the early morning light.

Underneath his chin there was the darker memory of an older but angrier wound, a rose-colored scar stretching from one side of his jaw to the other across the sensitive flesh of his throat. 

One cheek bore the line of an old and shallow gash. Sirius was surprised he hadn't noticed it before. He'd thought he knew Remus's face by heart.

Right beneath his left eyebrow there was another thin scar of a deeper but narrower cut, as if someone had sliced into the delicately veined skin with a razor blade. It stretched across the top of his eyelid and curled, grew bigger, at the corner of his eye, seeming to take on the shape of a tulip blossom.

Above his right eyebrow, across his forehead, was the tightening of too-white flesh that must have come from stripping off layers of skin from over the muscle. Head wounds, Sirius remembered, bled a lot.

After brushing aside Remus's bangs Sirius found, too, a scattering of many small scars all along his scalp, right at the hairline. There were bruises there, as well, some older, yellower ones and some newer, a deep purple-blue.

Behind his other ear, a scar curled around the outside of the shell, looping around it in a semi-circle.

Moving down to Remus's neck, there were a few new bruises, and that deep cut Sirius had seen at the beginning of the year starting to form a new scar, still red and violent looking. The skin around it seemed too pale, in contrast. The scar curved over his collar bone, and dipped beneath the collar of his shirt.

His upper arms were no better, little scars mixed with the bigger, older mixed with the new, on that soft skin. Sirius ran his sun-browned fingers over what would be an otherwise smooth plane of pale flesh, and stopped where the bandages began.

"Remus," he said, not knowing he was speaking out loud, "what is this? Remus."

In the bed, Remus stirred, brow furrowing before it smoothed out again. He wasn't untouched. Some hand, whether it was his own, or someone else's, had done such things to him.

Sirius wasn't angry.

He should have been angry, should have grabbed Remus up and shaken him awake screaming, flying into the realization as he flew into everything, head first and hoping he'd come out on top. There should have been that sudden rage that boiled up whenever he was put into a situation he didn't understand, whenever he saw someone hurt and couldn't do a thing about it.

But lying there, Remus looked so tired, even though he was sleeping. You weren't supposed to look tired when you were sleeping, Sirius wanted to say. You were supposed to look like you were resting. Like you could rest.

That was the funny thing about Remus. He could look calm when everyone else was losing their heads around him. He could stay smart when everyone else seemed to have gone completely crazy. His head was on his shoulders and he was stronger than anyone who bragged about how strong they were. But he looked so tired all of the time, like being old wasn't all it was cracked up to be, like understanding things made you miserable, not suddenly enlightened and able to manage everything for your wisdom.

Even in sleep, Remus Lupin looked tired. 

And when you couldn't shake that weariness when you were resting, Sirius Black didn't know how to be angry. All he could feel was this great weight, stinging the backs of his eyes and the spaces in between his ribs.

"Remus," he said sadly, and the name sounded like a plea, "Remus. Remus."

_I fell_, Remus would say.

_I was clumsy_, he would say, and he would smile and turn himself so that he wasn't meeting Sirius face to face, was looking up at him from somewhere where he became small and not-Remus.

_I'll be more careful next time_, he would say, and Sirius would have to believe him, because if he didn't it would mean that Remus was lying, and Sirius couldn't bear that.

Remus wouldn't, shouldn't lie to him.

_I promise_, Remus would say.

And Sirius pulled back from the bed carefully, so that he wouldn't disturb the sleeping boy in it, and tiptoed across the room, back to his own. 

And when Remus awoke Sirius was fast asleep in his bed, even though it was almost twelve-o'clock. Really, he was just so lazy like that.

The night sky, Remus mused, was the most beautiful thing to see on a crisp winter's night. It didn't look bruised or angry at all, just the softest, most welcoming of crushed velvet, sprinkled with the occasional bright sparkle of a star or two. The air was crisp, chilled, but the cold did not bother him, and the sky was dark and vast enough to distract him from where he was firmly resting, held by gravity, on the earth.

The cuts on his wrists had healed, but he still wore his sleeves long, just for precaution's sake. Sometimes he caught Sirius looking at him, from the corners of his deep blue eyes, as if the younger but bigger boy was trying to read his face using his scars as the words of the tale. Remus was terrified of being an open book to anyone, especially to Sirius. There were so many things to be read inside of himself that Remus had worked so hard and so long to keep hidden. He couldn't risk Sirius knowing. If Sirius knew, Remus would lose him. So he had to keep himself covered up, all that lay inside concealed.

But it was night, a beautiful clear night where, when Remus watched the star-speckled sky out the Astronomy Tower window, he felt as if he could see forever mapped out by the half-recognizable constellations. The pinpricks of light seemed ephemeral and faint when contrasted with the vast expanse of the dark sky. It was comforting to know, though, that they had endured for ages, lasting for endless lifetimes of the past, strong enough to remain for endless lifetimes on into the future. Remus took pleasure in knowing and remembering small things such as that.

"I never know what you're thinking," Sirius said from beside him. The dark haired boy shifted, propping himself up on one elbow, so he could watch Remus watch what seemed to be nothing at all.

"It isn't important," Remus replied distantly. He was thinking about the stars. He was thinking about the birthday party his friends had thrown him that day, with butterbeer James had snuck into Hogwarts and kept hidden since he'd returned from Christmas Break, and with the dazzling array of expensive chocolates Lilly and Peter had spent months of hard-earned pocket money on. He was thinking about the way Sirius laughed, his eyes alive with the most wonderfully bright fire, so that Remus and the other three couldn't help but laugh with him.

"C'mon," Sirius pleaded, watching Remus lazily. "Y'have a good birthday and suddenly you're mooning around about the stars?" The moon was a half-circle in the sky, half-powerful, as if it were the mocking line of half a laughing face. Remus had to admit it was beautiful, despite how it terrorized him, despite how he resented it. Sirius looked from Remus's face to the deep blue sky out the window, trying to see what it was that made him so sad. Somewhere in the stars was contained the name of what it was Remus was longing to forget.

"I'm not mooning," Remus protested softly. In the sky the moon wavered sadly behind the misty formation of a snow cloud. Moonlight caught the soft curve of Remus's cheek, as if the slight boy were merely the moon's reflection in a still, somber lake.

"You're mooning," Sirius insisted. Mooning over something but Sirius didn't know what it was. In its dome and wrapping paper, the Blue Rose sang. "Open your present, Moony." Naming things made them less foreign, tamed them, stole from some of their secrecy. The moon would have been less lovely and more threatening, there night after night, if it had not been given a title, m, o, o, n. He had to name this. He had to name this part of Remus that had not yet, and maybe never would, include him. With a grin Sirius adopted to make himself feel less nervous and more in control, he nudged the box across the cold stone floor between them to Remus's side.

"Moony?" A slim brow arched, and Remus took up the package into his hands, placing it in his lap. The glimmering wrapping paper caught the moonlight and burned silvery blue.

"Yeah," Sirius murmured, sitting up to watch in eager anticipation, though he hid his impatience well. Like the moon, so far away, so lonely and so beautiful. The name seemed to suit Remus. Even Remus felt how well it fit him, but he didn't know whether he should feel nervous or proud of the association between his himness and the moon's moonness. He pushed the nagging voices aside and began to unwrap the present, making sure he didn't rip the paper. Sirius realized that Remus did everything carefully, and wondered why he felt he had to. 

Remus peeled the layer of wrapping paper back and smoothed it out in a glinting square on his lap. He lifted the protective gold from the flower, and they were both aware of a thick, sweet smell in the air. The dark blue petals shivered with the cold of the night. Remus touched one. It felt like chilled velvet. The stem trembled, the thorns ached, and the petals whispered wonderful but impossible promises in the form of a wordless melody.

"Oh," Remus said, in that way which meant _I have no words to describe this_, "I've never"

"Seen a rose like that before?" Sirius fidgeted. "No. 'S a new type Hagrid's been working on for a while."

"It's a wonderful color." The deep blue that spoke of yellow, green and purple too, like a bruise that would not fade. There was a strange sound on the air, bittersweet harmonies mingling with that rich, enticing scent. Little shivers ran down Remus's spine as if someone was tickling down the center of his back. As he fidgeted the potted rose seemed to reach its petals out to him.

"Took a while to get it just right, like that," Sirius said, as if he had spent all the time on it and not Hagrid. "Just that color."

"Thank you," Remus said, "thank you, Sirius." His voice had gotten all soft and low, as it only did when he was speechless. In the darkness, Remus's eyes looked like the blue of the rose petals, wounded but stronger for their wounds, turning the origins of their wounds into a sad, sweet song.

Remus could hear what the petals sang, suddenly, loud and crystal clear.

_Je t'aime_, they mourned.

_Je t'aime et je suis seul_, each one chorused.

_Je suis ta rose_, the bloom echoed brokenly.__

La tienne.

And somehow that was heartbreakingly sad.

"'S called a Blue Rose of Forgetfulness," Sirius explained, moving closer to Remus's side, resting a hand on his shoulder. "Hagrid said -- said it'd come in handy, some day, pro'lly, and I thought you might like it, 'cause the color...I'd never seen anything like it, before... And you smell it, if you ever wanna forget anything -- thought, it's always good to have the choice. To forget. To be able to forget...anything you wanted to." Remus never said much. Sirius was trying to kill the pregnant and uncomfortable silence unsuccessfully with his words. They seemed helpless and weak in the face of such a challenge.

"Sirius," Remus said finally, lifting his eyes to his friend's face, tearing them from the rose in his lap.

_Je veux oublier tout_, it sang. The choice. The choice not to remember that dark night with his mother on all fours before him ripping at his soft belly before she even changed bodies because she couldn't wait and she wasn't strong and she didn't love him right. The smell of his own blood. The smell of his mother's blood later, but they were one and the same anyway, in his confused mind. Hating his father who locked him up, loving and hating his father who had killed to protect him. Being alone. Forget all that, and who was he? But still, the temptation was there, intoxicating and almost irresistible, like a drug, a heavy weight sinking lower in his lap.

"You look like the moon," Sirius whispered. "You look so damn sad, Moony." The name stuck on his tongue, choked in his throat, froze on his lips. "Remus." A little bit sad, like the moon. A little bit too far away. You couldn't cast a fishing net up at the sky and use your love for bait and catch the moon. Couldn't do things like that _in the real world_. "Remus."

_Je veux oublier l'amour_, the rose sang, because once you forgot the love you forgot the pain that came with the loving.

_Je veux oublier la tristesse,_ the rose sang, because once you forgot the sadness you forgot that you had any tears at all to be cried.

But if you forgot the sadness and the love then you forgot the happiness, too. Forget all three and you forgot yourself.

"Remus," Sirius said, "say something. Please."

But if you had the choice to remember or to forget and you chose to remember, then you were strong and you knew it. It meant you wanted to stay yourself. It meant that you were worth wanting. It meant that you were worth the sadness you caused yourself.

_Je veux oublier tout_, the rose repeated, but the call seemed far-off and weak, unimportant in light of the sudden shock of warmth to Remus's body.

_Memories are like scars. They are the map of who you are, who you have been, who you may one day become, all that you are and were and will be. Memories are like the scars of the past and they echo inside you, resounding over the walls of your future. If you forgot then you could not learn. If you forgot then you could not grow. If you forgot, then you were not. And perhaps this was what was in Voldemort's eyes when they spoke with each other. You must know your past to know yourself. You must know your past to know your future. There are these things, these reasons, for why you cannot allow yourself to forget, because to forget is to ignore, and to ignore is to allow weakness in yourself. To ignore yourself is to deny yourself and to deny the world._

"Thank you," Remus said, "Sirius. Thank you." And in that way of making the most important emotions seem diminutive and soft-spoken, Remus's voice could and did send a thousand shudders through Sirius's body, right down to his fingertips. When you left how pleased you were to the imagination, it was all the better. Sirius couldn't help but burst with pride, though he didn't know why. The rose seemed to have quieted, the tension in the air, maladroit and almost frightening, completely gone. 

"Happy birthday," Sirius murmured, because it was the right moment for that, now. Remus set the rose aside, placing it down next to him, where it sang and he could ignore it, and feel his body flood with strength.

"Thank you," he said again.

"You deserve it," Sirius said, grinning crookedly, "Moony." He leaned forward so that they could embrace each other tightly. They did. Sirius buried his face against the side of Remus's neck and didn't notice it when the other boy stiffened slightly. Remus smelled better than any roses Hagrid had been growing. Remus smelled like Remus, his own scent, and Sirius found himself oddly more aware of it than he ever had been of the way anything smelled, before.

The choice he had never been given before was in his own hands, now, and though they might have trembled from the weight, they were tangled in Sirius's hair, and could not.  
  
The choice he had not known could be given to him, as a birthday present, perhaps, was beside him on the cold floor, and his heart would have pounded except his chest was pressed up against Sirius's and their hearts had somehow managed to beat together.

They fell asleep like that, though they stayed awake together late into the night, with the stars burning bright messages in the darkness above them. You did not have to reach the stars to understand that they were simply _there_, Sirius realized. You did not have to fully understand them to feel the songs they were singing to you from far away, and enjoy the melody.

For a while, gazing at the stars could make anyone content. Later, he would wish to reach them. Later. 

But for now their two bodies were tangled together, and they were warm despite the chill that pervaded the air. After talking to each other of nothing at all, talking just for the words between them, talking just because there was nothing else in the world they could think of doing but hear each other speak, they drifted off, lulled by the beautiful night into their own depthless sleeps. 

In the early morning it snowed and Sirius dreamed of chasing butterflies in an abandoned mine while Remus dreamed of a world that was made from crushed blue velvet, where he could run naked on the supple fabric, free and wild.

Remus woke to Sirius nuzzling against his cheek, into his hair.

"...snowed, Moony," Sirius said, as if it hadn't snowed more than once each week the past winter, as if the snow were suddenly something bright and beautiful and new to their eyes. But they had seen snow every single day, this winter, since the very last chilly day in November.

"Mmh," Remus groaned, eyes opening slowly, reluctantly, "it's the snow." Sirius butted up against his chin.

"Mm," Sirius said, "but it's our snow."

"The snow doesn't belong to anyone," Remus mumbled, sitting up as Sirius pulled away from him. The chill in the air made itself suddenly known as Sirius's body heat left, and Remus found himself moving after Sirius as Sirius moved away, holding onto his shirt.  
  
"Getting friendly, Moony?" Sirius laughed softly against his ear.

"Getting cold," Remus said, grumpy sleep fading and leaving his senses with only a cold room and a warm friend.

"Keep you warm, then," Sirius said, and though he laughed after that, he wrapped his arms around Remus's shoulders, intending to keep that promise.

Things were warmer with Remus held close, anyway.

Leading up to That Night Which Changed Everything were a few other but less important events that were necessary for things to work out as they did, but because of their basic irrelevance, they were forgotten later.

The first was, Ellen Abott looked so happy she might very well burst, and there was the general consensus among the other girls that they needed to become immediately jealous of her good fortune. Whatever it was that good fortune happened to be.

She glided through the hallways with her head held high and her hair tossed behind one shoulder, and she looked as if she could kill a horse with the sheer force of her self-confidence alone. It drove the boys crazy and the girls even crazier.

It was a secret.

Only for James Potter it wasn't so much of a secret as a little pet peeve.

"You're a bloody _git_," he hissed to Sirius Black after potions, the first day Ellen Abott began to look revoltingly cheerful.

"Yeah," Sirius said, shying back miserably from his friends accusing eyes.

"You know," James continued, eyes flashing angrily still, "that it isn't her you want. The entire grade's going to kill you. I'm going to get there first."

"You can let up a little," Sirius muttered, running his hands ashamedly through his hair. The part that was so annoying was that James was completely and totally right. His glasses caught the light, messy hair falling over his forehead, making him look comical despite his seriousness.

"No," James said, "I can't let up a little. Ought to kick your sorry arse right here and right now but I don't have the bloody time."

"Language," Sirius mumbled, but it was a half-hearted attempt.

"Don't you 'language' _me_, Sirius Black," James hissed, and it was then that Sirius knew his friend was truly angry. 

"Come off it, James," Sirius said, keeping his gaze fixed to his feet. The bottoms of his robes, he took note, were absolutely fascinating, the way they frayed at this one edge because he was rather careless with his clothes.

"Ellen Abott. Again."

"I know."

"After all the things you said -- about not liking her. All the things you said about Remus..." James looked dangerous, bringing himself up to his full height, which, though it was a half inch shorter than Sirius's, still managed to make Sirius feel very small.

"That was last year?" Sirius attempted lamely.

"And you expect me to believe that?" James gave him The Look, used first in their little group by Lilly, but patented originally by Mothers Everywhere. Sirius had used it against James many times, but it was quite another thing having it used on you.

"Well, I _did_," Sirius muttered, "until you _didn't_."

"Sirius."

"Yeah?"

"If you come running to me for help about Ellen Abott or any of this bloody mess you've gotten yourself into," James said, all in one breath, "then I'm going to _really_ kick your arse, and you're not going to know what's bloody hit you."

"I know."

"And you're going to deserve it."

"I know."

"And more than even I can give you."

"I know." Sirius scoffed the heal of his shoe against the ground, trying not to look James directly in the eye. The most annoying thing about friends coming to tell you you were wrong was knowing that they were absolutely, infuriatingly _right_.

"Because maybe you should stop to think that you aren't just hurting yourself in the end, and you aren't just hurting Ellen Abott, too, so it doesn't matter what you bloody do." James could face anyone down. He was the only one of them who could stand Lucius face to face and truly make the blond feel miserably tiny. Sirius's eyes narrowed, mostly in defense. If he didn't get angry now, then he'd just be giving in. He couldn't do that, not to anyone. Even if it was James.

"I got the point, James," he said tersely.

"No," James went on, less nasty and more exasperated, "I don't think you did."

"Who the hell asked you, anyway?"

"I think Remus did," James said, and his voice was very low, and very calm, which made Sirius feel like he should run under his bedcovers and hide for at least a week.

"_Remus_ asked you?" Sirius found that quite hard to believe.

"Yeah. Remus. 'Cause we all had to sit there and listen to you go off about what a royal pain in the arse Ellen Abott is, and then you're off and with her again. And I don't know how blind you are, Sirius, but you can hurt people by just being careless around them. Stupid around them."

"What are you even talking about?"

"You came to me last year and begged me to help you with her. Because you _don't_ like Ellen Abott, you bloody daft twit, you like _Remus_, and if you had any eyes in your big swollen head you'd see that _he_ likes _you_, too!"

There was a very long silence between them. The empty halls seemed to echo with the words, though James hadn't raised his voice above a menacing whisper.

James couldn't have possibly been so observant on his own. Most of this, Sirius figured as his mind suddenly began to function again, must have come from Lilly's intelligence and -- he took it a step farther -- Lilly's womanly intuition. Not that Sirius really believed in that sort of thing. He just knew that James was a sight deal emotionally dafter than Lilly was, and that he himself was feeling at the moment stupider than a truck full of headless chickens.

So, Sirius concluded, Lilly must have put James up to this. There couldn't be any other explanation for it.

It also explained why Sirius felt so defenseless in the face of these arguments.

And then the weight of all James had said finally sunk in to both his chest and his brain and he felt himself spluttering a little, refusing to believe it, or perhaps not quite able to let himself hope so greatly. Of all impossible things the most impossible was Remus ever looking at him as someone more than just a friend. A best friend, yes, but only that.

"You're daft," Sirius said finally, when he could make his dry lips move.

"You're blind," James replied evenly, blue eyes challenging his friend with that hidden but ever triumphant passion behind them. Of them both, Sirius knew James was the better.

"You're an _idiot_," Sirius said, because something had begun to ache inside his chest, and he blamed James for it, whatever it was. 

"Hn," James said, folding his arms over his chest. He had turned his face away. Sirius couldn't challenge it, that way, couldn't fight the looks he had been given with anger of his own.

"Blow off," he hissed finally, turning on his heel and storming away, in more of a huff than he'd been in for a long while.

"That could have gone better," James mused to himself, before he, too, left, knowing full well that if he didn't give a full report to Lilly, he'd get his own arse kicked.

And soon after that the second semi-important thing that happened, which was a mixture of two things. Firstly, summer seemed to come early that year, and secondly, it brought with it a storm of monarch butterflies, orange and black on the suddenly hot air. Ellen Abott chose it as a sign, some sort of omen, and because it was lovely to watch those fragile wings beat against the cool breeze and triumph, she immediately assumed it was a good one. No student of Hogwarts could take a step without running into the fluttering things, and for a while, it was surreal, like walking always into a wall of bright color no matter where you stepped. After the pale winter it was a welcome change, and eventually, everyone grew used to it. It was called the Spring of the Butterflies, and it was a time in which both the young and old allowed themselves to harbor the misapprehension that they were immortal, that eternity was within their grasps.

The days of the Butterfly Spring passed, the days thick with butterflies, and Ellen Abott was safe in a cocoon of happiness. All the while Sirius and James barely spoke to each other, and Remus withdrew behind his massive books, as well as into his secretive studies with Severus Snape. The butterflies around Peter seemed to shiver, as if he exuded an aura thick with tension, and where he walked they parted. It gave him a feeling of power he had never before felt, enjoying the way the butterflies let him pass, and trembled in distress when he came near.

Because of the butterflies, receiving and sending mail by Owl Post grew less effective, letters delayed because of the owls' confusion in the butterfly-filled air. When Remus at last got his father's letter saying that he had talked things out with Sirius's parents, and Sirius was going to come stay with them for a week and a half in late July, Remus couldn't even find Sirius to tell him the news, what with the butterflies and Ellen Abott. That was the third thing leading up to the Night Which Changed Everything.

In a moment of passionate loneliness Remus hid himself in his room and listened to the Blue Rose sing and began to feel something well up inside him that had never been there before. Emotions and hormones were toyed with in the odd and somehow unreal atmosphere. Best friends picked fights with each other, lovers quarrelled, teachers canceled classes because of headaches, or simply to watch the flight of the butterflies outside the windows, and Remus felt the beast within him writhe and whimper in turmoil. He was betrayed in a way he had never before been, betrayed by himself, perhaps, but that did not mean the betrayal hadn't gone deep. He did not place trust in anyone on a whim. Sirius Black had been, Remus realized, his other half for a long while now. It felt as if a limb had been severed from his body, every time Remus became freshly aware that the other boy wasn't there with him.

Without Sirius, it was hard to smile, harder still to laugh. Without Sirius places that had been filled up inside of Remus's chest began to empty out again. Without Sirius, Remus felt acutely alone, in a way a lonely person only can once they've had something to compare loneliness with.

There was jealousy, and anger, and the part of boyhood that had made his wisdom and sagacity seem precocious began to fade away. The Spring of the Butterflies was a time for change, perhaps for adulthood, and as the world changed around Remus he could not help but have to change, too. As when he changed from boy to wolf, he withdrew into a carefully constructed shell, excluded himself from his friends and waited as he began to change from boy to the beginnings of a man, the very framework for who he would one day grow up to be.

It was miserable, Remus realized late one night, going through it alone. It was miserable going through anything at all alone but it seemed as if he had no choice in the matter any longer. He considered writing back to his father, telling him there would be no visitors, but at the last moment he didn't. If he had, he knew he would go through life as a coward.

_Il faut que tu m'apprivoises_, the Blue Rose had begun to sing, and in the butterfly scented air, the tune changed from one of aching to one of bitter longing. Remus didn't fully understand it. Perhaps it was echoing the longing in his chest that was tinged with sadness, a longing for something he didn't understand and didn't have a name for, yet.

What good were words when you couldn't use them to comfort yourself in times like these?

Remus had not cried since that dark night when his mother, Dalila Lupin, died on the forest floor with a bullet in her throat and her blood pooling out on both their bodies. Inside him there was something coppery and something sour that spoke of tears, and from behind his books he felt it rise up through his body, tugged by someone unknown force of his changing nature.

The last event that led up to the Night Which Changed Everything was that the head of the Gryffindor house came up with the brilliant idea of throwing a wild, end-of-the year party that would put all the Slytherins to shame, and force them to turn green with utter envy. Butterbeer was snuck in and someone managed to spike it with _something_, so that in a little over an hour the Gryffindor Common Room was alive with teeming, teenage chaos.

Naturally, Remus was not a part of it. In missing essential parts of his own self he could obviously not become a part of anything else, and had snuck back up to his own bed the instant Sirius had left his side. He could hear the sounds of the party drifting up to him from below, muffled but not muted happiness seeming as carefree as Remus was not, even diluted as it was through the floorboards and his canopy bed-curtains.

" 'Who can say whether we shall ever see them again?' said Morrel, with tearful eyes."

_Sirius with his head in Remus's lap, eyes closed, a familiar weight against him, making Remus's body jump with excitement just a little at the memory of it, only it didn't jump then, just felt warm and comfortable. Took it for granted. Took Sirius for granted._

" 'Darling,' replied Valentine, 'has not the count just told us that all human wisdom was contained in these two words,-- _"Wait and hope"_?' "

He had never gotten to finish the book with Sirius.

Remus closed it, the cover heavy and rough beneath his fingers. One of his favorites, therefore grown old with use. The pages were wrinkled, like old skin, and crackled when he turned them. It smelled familiar, and he knew at least the words of the book would never change. They were something that he could rely upon forever, or for as long as he needed to.

The door swung open, the sounds of the party growing louder, and then soft again as the door thudded shut. Remus pulled his knees up to his chest, listening to the laborious footsteps of whoever it was had come up to escape the party creak over the wooden floorboards. After a while he lost interest in them, pressing his palms down against his shins and frowning at nothing at all.

_Wait and hope. _The words of Edmond Dantes suddenly held little meaning to Remus, who had been waiting patiently with that hidden hope for too, too long, now. He had always attended without complaint the arrival of all he hoped for. More than fourteen years, now. He was allowed to get restless.

Remus squeezed his eyes shut. That metallic tang in the back of his eyes and that tight feeling that constricted his throat were getting worse, harder to ignore. His hands clenched into fists, his body tensing into that tight ball. On his wrists, fresh cuts from the last full moon reminded him of their presence in sharp bursts of pain.

The curtains to his bed were brushed aside. The bed sank a little as Sirius sat on it, his weight causing the bedsprings to shift. The scent he brought with him told Remus who it was, so he didn't have to look up.

"Moony," Sirius said.

"Go back to the party," Remus managed. His cheeks burned, hot and unexpectedly wet. He hadn't cried in years.

"You're not there," Sirius attempted. His voice sounded loose and strange, which meant he'd no doubt had some of the enhanced butterbeer.

"There are other people." Remus wasn't the party sort.

"But not you," Sirius pressed, leaning forward. Curled up like that, Remus looked as small as he really was and as hurt as he must have been. James's words came back to him, and it struck him suddenly that the reason Remus hurt so much, the reason Sirius had been searching so long to find, was Sirius himself. "Moony. Remus."

"Go back to the party," Remus repeated. Sirius had a hand on one of his hands, now, and Remus felt his fist go limp. Sirius had his fingers splayed on top of Remus's fingers, now, and Remus lifted his head.

"Moony," Sirius said, pulling back, "you're crying." The idea of Remus doing such a thing was foreign to Sirius's mind, and he could barely process the concept, with everything inside his head as fuzzy as it was. But, no, there were slicked tear streaks running down the sides of Remus's cheeks, and though Sirius had never seen Remus do anything like it before, the boy was quite obviously crying.

"Oh," Remus said, as if he hadn't fully grasped that he was, himself. He lifted his free hand to his own cheek, and pulled it away slowly, looking down at his wet fingertips. "Oh," he said again. On top of Remus's other hand, Sirius tightened his hold, eyes half-panicked.

"Why are you crying?"

"I don't know."

"You have to." Tell me, Sirius's eyes begged, that it's not because of me you're crying.

"I don't know," Remus said again, soft and hesitant. "I can't stop." From the very depths of Remus's amber-brown eyes Sirius could see a little silver light, trembling amongst the flecks of gold. He didn't know what it was. But he must have been very close, to be able to see it there. How had he gotten so close, in the first place? His mind couldn't place things, couldn't keep a solid grasp on the passage of time or relative distances.

"Moony," Sirius said, very softly, "Remus."

"Don't," Remus said, but Sirius's hand was warm against his own, their fingers interlaced against his shin, and Sirius was very, very close, so that Remus was protesting against the line of his jaw. It didn't seem like it was a real protestation at all because there was simply no passion behind it. Sirius promptly ignored it and acted as if Remus had said nothing at all. Remus's breath was ghosting over his cheek, and it made something in his stomach tighten while it effectively shut down the functionality of his brain. The tear tracks on Remus's face caught the dim light, and Sirius frowned. Whether he had put those tears there or not was his own selfish wondering. What mattered now was brushing them away. 

Sirius took Remus's face in one hand and brought his lips to his cheek, eyes falling lazily shut. 

He pursed his lips, kissed the side of Remus's face gently, felt the salty wet on his tongue and trailed up the length of that slightly-sticky streak until he got to the corner of Remus's eye. He felt the other boy's eyelashes tremble against his mouth but couldn't bring himself to look at Remus's face. He kissed right beneath those lashes gently, slowly, and then pulled away.

"Sirius," Remus said. His voice was a rough, shaken whisper, and his hand in Sirius's was cold.

"Next side," Sirius murmured softly, and closed the distance again between them. 

He started at Remus's eye this time, coaxing the last of the tears onto his lips, and then moved down the curve of his cheek, to where the tears had slipped over his chin and underneath. He tilted Remus's head back just slightly and dipped underneath, against his throat, to kiss the last of the tears away from his skin. He nuzzled lightly against that soft weak spot, kissing it three times after all the tears were gone, replaced with the moist, not unpleasant memory of Sirius's lips. 

Remus felt himself stiffen but he allowed Sirius access to his neck. Muscles in his stomach tensed and relaxed, only to be followed by more tensing muscles. He closed his eyes, dark lashes fluttering helplessly over his cheekbones. His head was leaned back with his chin up so that Sirius could get at his throat. Part of him was panicking.

"Sirius."

"Moony," Sirius said, voice thrumming against Remus's Adam's Apple. It was the impossible terror of knowing, Remus thought to himself in a place where his mind was somehow still coherent, that this was something you wanted so badly. It was the impossible terror of not-knowing what it was Sirius was after.

Sirius's hair was tickling his chin. It was painful to breathe but he managed to anyway, feeling the air catch in his throat and against Sirius's lips.

If only he could stop thinking for just a little while, Remus thought. If only he could put enough trust in their clasped hands to make his mind shut up.

Sirius slid their hands up Remus's leg, resting them more comfortably on Remus's knee. The hand on Remus's face moved down and behind, resting on the back of his neck. Sirius pulled back, only to move in so that their faces were close together. They breathed against each other for a while, lips parted, breaths mingling between their half-open mouths. Sirius rubbed his thumb over Remus and was aware that their motions seemed static and slowed down. He couldn't bring himself to move any closer or to do anything else. It would be the end, they both knew, of something they had been for almost three years, now. It would be admitting too much, much too soon. Their foreheads rested together, their eyes closed, their breathing slow and paced the same.

"I just like to hold you," Sirius said softly, his words dancing along Remus's own lips. It was his own sort of protest. I don't want to change; I don't want to feel this; I don't want to get any older. All he wanted was to stay the same, and maybe run his fingers through Remus's hair sometimes, and maybe kiss the corners of his eyes, and the corner of his mouth, too, to make him smile. Maybe, all he wanted was to see Remus laugh, and to hold tight to his hand, and banish that cold, eery moonlight from deep in his eyes.

"I wouldn't tell you you couldn't," Remus murmured, and Sirius could almost taste his voice on his tongue, sweet and lonely, but maybe less lonely, now. Sirius felt Remus's knuckles underneath his thumb and caressed them, gently. Remus wondered at the heat he felt from the touch and the fire he felt from Sirius's words and the pounding of his own heart, despite how slow the whole world felt, how lazy and thick.

"I just like to-- like to hear your laugh," Sirius said. It sounded like a rusty gate opening, just that broken and world-weary. It sounded like a child on Christmas morning, just that innocent and delighted. Remus seemed to know there wasn't much to laugh about, which made every single laugh more important.

"I didn't know that," Remus wondered aloud. When Sirius breathed in he was breathing all that Remus was breathing out. There was no air but their own breaths between their lips, no room for anything but that between their bodies. Their hands were warm and held tightly together, finally motionless atop Remus's knee.

"I never told you," Sirius said, and he leaned in to kiss him. Remus's ribcage tightened around his heart, his chest constricting almost painfully. Their lips weren't more than a centimeter apart. Less. Remus's eyes were open, half-panicked, and his fingers clenched against Sirius's.

The door to the room slammed open. 

Sirius jerked back at the noise.

Footsteps thudded, creaking over the floorboards.

"Sirius?" James's voice called out.

"Remus?" Lilly's followed James's a moment later.

Sirius's blue eyes caught Remus's deep brown ones. Something passed between them that later Sirius would not be able to name and Remus would never be able to explain. It was then, in that instant, that Everything Changed.

"Where are you?" James's voice again. "You're missing all the fun!" And Sirius pulled away, letting go of Remus's hand.

"We're here, we're here," he grumbled, pushing out of Remus's bed, "I was trying to convince Remus to come back down and join the party." Remus slipped out of his bed, smoothing himself out, his face calm and emotionless. Sirius thought to himself that his friend would make a spectacular poker player.

"Are you _coming_?" James asked, impatient.

"Mm," Remus murmured, and,

"Yeah," Sirius said.

On the Night Which Changed Everything, the butterflies looked like flames leaping in the darkness, clustering close to the windows which radiated meager light and tentative heat, their fragile bodies packed together against the glass.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
**Translations**  
I don't know.  
You know.  
You wouldn't understand.  
Why are you here?  
Because...because I always answer questions.  
And because one only believes what one sees.  
You know things that adults do not. You are truly a scholar.  
That's a lie. Your name. What is your name?  
Voldemort.  
No. All of it.  
Liam d'Or (of gold) Voldemort.  
I don't trust gold. It's a lie, also. It isn't important.  
Good. Goodbye (lit: "to the next sighting")  
I hope that it's good bye (lit: "to god"; implying that they'll never meet again)  
Goodbye.  
Goodbye.

I love you.  
I love you and I am alone.  
I am your rose.  
Yours.

I want to forget everything.

I want to forget love.  
I want to forget sadness.  
I want to forget everything. 


	7. Chapter Six: Printemps Qui Commence

****Alright, I'm really trying hard here. I am going to eat ff.net's children for breakfast in tabasco sauce. In any case -- this should work. If it doesn't, I'll just have to kill myself. Thank you, fanfiction.net, for giving me yet another nervous breakdown. All of you who have been waiting for ff.net to **actually** work, just...rarg. I'm so, so sorry. It's not my fault, and I've literally been tearing my hair out over this chapter. My stomach hurts. Leave me R&R because really, after this ordeal, I **need** something to cheer me up.

  
****

Chapter VI: Printemps Qui Commence  
  
The Butterfly Spring faded into summer and those familiar fiery bodies disappeared once the heat came, incredible scorching heat that England was unused to seeing so early in the summer. It was a heat so heavy even rumors stopped circulating. It seemed as if soon blood would stop pumping through veins, and the world, faced with such oppressive heat, would stop spinning slowly on its axis. In the hot, crushing air relationships were staggered, children and adults alike were lazy, and the end of school could not come fast enough for any of the students.

Hot nights followed hot days, hot week after hot week passed, and Remus kept away from Sirius Black and anything that involved him. The tension made thick between them with the hot air stretched and congealed, and Sirius kept his lonely eyes cast downward when he passed his friend in the hall. And it was always easy for Remus to withdraw.

At least Ellen Abott was no longer a factor to be considered. Sirius had caused a huge scene the night after the party by calling everything between them off, and Ellen had spent the rest of the school year finding comfort in Lucius Malfoy's arms. (Naturally, this brought Maeve Zabini a little bit of hope, but Sirius made no acknowledgements of her advances, and she was left feeling disappointed and faintly confused.)  
  
Sirius himself was left more alone than he had ever been in his life, and the feeling gnawed away at the inside of his chest until he couldn't even bear to see the other boy. It was an awkwardness, a loneliness, that lingered between them and drove Sirius half mad. Something, somewhere back in the darkness of that night, had changed everything.

Perhaps it was that one era had ended, another was soon to come, and this was the miserable transition point in between they had to suffer through. They had orbited away from each other, Sirius felt, and waiting for them to orbit back was a misery he felt he could not suffer another day. But each day passed, another and another, the loneliness a great, aching rent in Sirius's chest. He had done something wrong, and he couldn't fix it. There was no punishment he could endure, no re-test to take. He had done something wrong, and he had lost Remus.

Remus himself was alone again. Those kisses still burned on his cheek, but he ignored the feeling. If he couldn't even meet Sirius's eyes, how was he supposed to meet his lips?

Remus was silent on the train ride back from Hogwarts, arms wrapped around his middle, eyes fixed on the window and not what lay outside of it. The scenery barely interested him. It was too fleeting, swishing past in flashes and snatches of suddenly too-dull colors. Gray-greens mixed with lack-luster gold and muddy brown and became a thoroughly unappetizing, muddled display.

In comparison with the world of butterflies and longing tension, everything Remus once found vivid had suddenly lost all its appeal. There was silence between both he and Sirius. Lilly looked towards James, and motioned towards the door of their car meaningfully. Immediately James got the hint, and stood, excusing himself quietly.

Neither Sirius nor Remus noticed. They wouldn't have cared if they did.

"We have to do something," Lilly hissed to James in the hall, after dragging him insistently out of the car for a talk.

"Ow," James said, "you're bloody hurting my arm like that. Have to do something about what?"

"Sirius and Remus!" Lilly exclaimed, as if she apparently felt James had cotton where his brain should be. "Are you blind?"

"No, but a certain girl seems to have broken my arm," James grumbled peevedly.

"Well wake up, James Potter, because we have to do something."

"Do what?"

"I don't know." Lilly folded her arms over her chest and frowned to herself. If the situation had any brains, James thought, it would rectify itself immediately before it had to deal with Lilly on the warpath. She was a formidable enemy to face, and always came out on top when she set her mind to (or perhaps against) something she felt needed to be remedied.

"Well. That's helpful," James said, and wished immediately he hadn't.

"Don't you see how miserable they are? Your own bloody friends!" Ah, yes, a scowl from Lilly Evans. Impossible to face directly in the eye, impossible to stand up against for even a minute before your blood started to curdle and your knees felt weak.  
  
"Well," James said, and then, for lack of anything else better to say, "well."

"There's got to be something," Lilly went on, musing to herself, vehemence gone, replaced with a careful, calculating air.

"Why don't we just - you know. Let them figure it out for themselves?"

"We _could_ do that," Lilly said, very slowly, "if we wanted to watch them spend the rest of their lives being stupid _gits_."

"Ah." James grinned weakly. "Right. So. What d'you suggest, then?" Lilly pursed her lips thoughtfully, tapping one foot rhythmically against the floor.

"That's what I asked you," she said at last.

"Uhm. I don't know?"

"Not going to cut it."

"Uhm. We could talk to them? Figure out what's wrong?"

"Don't have time for that," Lilly murmured, brow furrowing as she frowned again. "If we only had another day"

"We don't," James pointed out, not helpfully. Lilly glared at him and he wilted under the force of the gaze.

"You're not helping," she muttered.

"Sorry," James mumbled, once again two inches. He worshipped the girl, which was why he was so terrified of her.

"There's nothing we can do for over the summer, is there."

"No," James said.

"Bloody _hell_," Lilly said, foot slamming vehemently against the carpeted floor.

"It'll work out," James murmured after a while of tense silence. "Really. Sirius is a git, but when he knows what he wants, he gets it."

"And Remus may be quiet," Lilly said, brightening, "but he isn't stupid." They looked towards each other and felt how very much they were partners, in crimes and in their teenage life, and Lilly felt her heart softening so that such softness rose to her eyes. James was breathless, that emerald green the color of every boyhood dream he'd ever had, even the most foolish flights of his fancy made wonderous as they echoed in that gaze of Lilly Evans.

"It'll work out," James repeated, feeling awed and at a loss for words, "It has to."

And, steeped in a world of childhood where anything was possible, even a spring filled with the song of monarch butterflies and a winter where the moon wondered aloud to you from the velvet sky, James Potter truly believed that in The End, it would all work out to a Happy Ending.

"Remus." Remus hefted his bag in his arms and brushed his hair from his eyes with his free hand. Even on the train car, which was kept always comfortably cool, the heat was beginning to get to him. It was going to be a long hot summer. The butterflies, he mused as he remembered his Divination lessons, must have signified this coming heat, their wings like flames dancing on the air. And then he shook his head, thinking himself quite a fool for believing butterflies were anything but butterflies.

"Remus." And outside the world was shimmering with the heat, wavering as the world did when seen through smoke or mist, and he wondered if the air would be moist and heavy, like in the Herbology greenhouse.

"Remus," Sirius said for the third time, and finally Remus woke from whatever daydreams he had been buried in.

"Oh," he murmured, unable to meet Sirius's eyes, hating his own shyness so terribly that for a moment it threatened to surge up like a threatened wolf inside him. His edges trembled. He held the feeling down in his tenuous, weak grasp, managing to keep it at bay. "Mm, Sirius?"

"Remus." He couldn't say anything else. His voice was softer than usual. Remus hadn't noticed until that moment the change in tonality, the way the usual laughter had faded from it. He noticed also that there was the echo of sadness, like a puppy whimpering, threaded through the sound of his own name on Sirius's lips. In his eyes was a pained, haunted darkness that seemed to be pleading with Remus, begging him for a forgiveness Remus did not know how to give.

"Yes?" he asked eventually, aware of just how much his reply was lacking.

"I'll - I'll see you - this summer," Sirius murmured finally, bowing his head in defeat.

"I'll see you," Remus said softly, moving past his friend. There was something in the brushing together of their shoulders, the way Sirius turned his head to the side and fixed his eyes on Remus's profile, the way Remus felt his heart jump in his chest at the contact. There was something in it but they did not yet know what and it went unspoken because it was unnamed. Remus moved off the train and into the sunlight, his heart and his footsteps equally heavy, despite the day's bright and cheery nature.

"Son." 

From over the edge of his book, the worn pages pooling him in cooling shade.

"Son."

Distant, like the echo of his name when he heard his father weep through wolf ears.

"Son."

Distant because it disturbed him when he was in another world, living in another world, breathing and eating and drinking too the words on the pages before him. It was hard to uncover Remus when he was buried in a good book.

"Remus." Etienne sat down on the couch beside his son and placed a hand on his shoulder. The sudden contact startled the boy, and he turned quickly, shocked from his reading.

"Mm?" He had half been tempted to say 'oui.' Sometimes, the French words slipped out of him but mostly, they went unnoticed, for the things he said he said quietly. A person had to be listening very closely to catch them.

Etienne sank into the couch back, feeling his muscles relax instinctively. His son's face looked old, too old, as if he were a very sad forty-five year-old trapped in a fourteen year-old suit. It pained him that the only remnants of Dalila were not her vitality or her passion for life, but the bite mark and all the childhood it had left in ruins. "You've gotten quite a lot of mail, lately."

"Mm."

"You haven't answered any of them." Remus's hands tightened on the book cover.

" No."

"Pourquoi pas?" Etienne inclined his head to the side, studying his boy's face. The profile: proud but lonely. The eyes: awash with moonlight, filled with the song of solitude. The mouth: lips that did not frown or smile, except on rare and fleeting occasions. The nose: and it made him think of Dalila, the slight snub to it, so he could not afford to think on it. The cheekbones: his own, the one mark of himself upon his son. The shadows: they were there, even on the brightest of days with the brightest of sunlight, even with a smile upon his face, even with laughter upon his lips; the shadows that lurked and echoed in his eyes, the shadows cast by his long lashes from the outside and that hidden, unspoken misery from the inside. Dark, Etienne thought. A darkness that did not necessarily mean something foul, but a darkness that was reminiscent of texture. All that had texture had shadow. Etienne's son was a rocky, uncharted terrain that Etienne could not begin to map.

"Je ne sais pas," Remus murmured, staring down at his book, held in his hands. The palms: a few scars across them from where wolf-pads had caught on wolf-canines. The fingers: long and delicate, as hers had been, another memory of France, and of the wild woods, and of the bright fire in her eyes. There were words there next to those fingers, thankfully, to tame and counterbalance their hidden and savage strength.

"Tu sais, Remus." One graying eyebrow lifted. Etienne's pale blue eyes were sparkling but serious beneath that brow. He couldn't, Remus realized, lie to his father's eyes.

"Mon ami. Sirius" Etienne watched his son carefully.

"Ton ami."

"Oui."

"Comment l'aime-tu?" 

Silence between them. Then,

"Je ne"

"Ne ments pas, Remus. Ne dis pas les mensonges a moi." Remus's fingers, tight and unsure on the book he held, clutching at the pages as if he were drowning and those words were the only things keeping him afloat. After all, Etienne mused, words were maleable, quick to mean one thing and even quicker to represent another. They were the servants of man, of man's tongue and pen and typewriter. They were not like the forest, which housed animals and their wordless muzzles and their wordless paws. They were not like the moon, either, which pulled the earth helplessly, like a puppy, around in its cycles. Over words, you had full control. You shaped them and by your choices alone did they shape you.

"Pardonne-moi." Remus looked away.

"Dis-moi la verite."

There was nothing to it, then, but to tell the truth. Remus's tongue felt dry but his heart felt full. His hands trembled but his heart was still, beating solidly in his chest. Just the truth. He knew it all too well; it had dawned on him suddenly, and it was The Truth, now. The only truth.

"Je l'aime."

"C'est tout?"

"Avec tout mon coeur."

"Et la loupe?"

"la loupe aussi."

"Il te plait. Oui?" Remus found himself suddenly blushing, color suffusing his pale cheeks.

"Oui."

"Et, avec lui, tu ristoujours?"

"Oui."

"Pour toi - pour toi, Remus, je suis hereux."

They were silent for a while, Remus's hands folded on his book in his lap, and Etienne's eyes fixed on something off in the distance, not quite tangible even to his fingertips, even if he stretched his mind with his body in desperate hope.

"Merci, papa."

"just answer the letters, Remus." If this boy - this Sirius Black - felt for Remus even half of what Etienne's son felt in return for him, he would no doubt be mad with worry, after receiving no letters in reply to the dozen or so he had sent. 

"All right."

"Tell me - does he?" Etienne queried softly, on impulse, riding the waves of impossible daring to ask this question of his son. For a moment, it seemed to Etienne that Remus would not answer him.

"I don't know." That shadow passed, slow and ponderous, over Remus's features.

"I am sure," Etienne murmured, "from all these letters he has sent you that he most certainly does." He patted his son's shoulder awkwardly, but the both of them were relaxed, unwilling to feel uncomfortable after such words had passed between them. "And," Etienne added after a moment, "I can't wait to meet him."

"Mm," Remus said, very softly, thinking of those blue eyes turned on him, and of the rose he kept still by his bedside, warm and humming with life, roots fed on despair even as its petals unfurled to the warmth of the sun.

As Sirius packed his suitcase he felt oddly calm, calmer than he would have expected to be under the circumstances, certainly. He wasn't a careful packer but he didn't really care about that one galleon, stuffing shirts in with his jeans, a sweater for just in case because his mother was watching. He didn't fold anything, just shoved things pell-mell into the case and planned on sitting atop it to get it to shut.

"Sirius," Aquila Black said discouragingly, heaving a deep sigh.

"Mum," Sirius groaned, continuing to thrust t-shirts into the mess hastily.

"You're making a mess of that," Cassy murmured from beside her mother, rocking one of the twins -- Peg, it was -- in her arms to keep her asleep. "Just _like_ you, Sirius."

"Shut up, _Cassiopea_," Sirius grumbled, but there was no venom in his voice. He was too cheerful to start a real fight with his kid sister, too cheerful to wake Peg and give his mother extra work and ruin his good mood.

"Mum!" Cassy scowled, turning her back on her brother and instead choosing to hum to little Peg in her arms. Aquila Black nodded firmly in approval of her daughter's mature choice of actions, frowning slightly towards her son, but softening moments later. He would be gone for two whole weeks. It made her worry and made her feel lonely, despite the superficial relief she felt at knowing there would be one less demanding voice crying out through the halls of her house.

"Now," Aquila said softly, "you'll be careful?"

"Yes, mum," Sirius said, as if he were reciting his catechism.

"And you'll make sure if it gets cold to put on that sweater?"

"Of course, mum."

"And you'll take care of yourself?"

"As I always am, mum," Sirius mumbled, lifting a brow in his mother's direction. Aquila Black softened.

"Mm," she said, looking her son up and down and shaking her head slightly, "that's what I'm afraid of."

"Don't do anything da wouldn't do," Cassy murmured, from over Peg's head. Aquila made a face that only Sirius' caught. Laughter was shared between their eyes, the same deep blue, piercing and youthful, wise and childish all at once.

"You know I'd have your hide if you did what Orion'd, in any situation, Sirius Black," his mother said finally. Cassy blinked as Sirius grinned wide from ear to ear, almost splitting his face in two with the expression. Aquila thought how much he looked like her husband, and her first son Ewan, who could charm man or woman, man or beast, the young and the old and everything that lay in between. Sirius was a bit stronger and a bit less flighty than Ewan, though, and that was lucky, for Ewan had always been the type of boy to die quietly somewhere in a pub with the smell of beer kissing his lips. Aquila wasn't about to lose two of her boys to the embrace of the drink, and her husband and her darling son Michael were quite enough to be lost to the mines. Her girls would be her own and Sirius would be free. That gift could never be taken from him. It terrified her and filled her with joy both to know that he would leave her one day to be his own man, far away from the small town of Rhondda, and the miner's dust that filled its air.

"I know, mum," Sirius said. He wasn't nervous, no, because he knew exactly what he was going to do. He'd planned it out every night for at least two hours until it had been perfectly refined. Nothing could go wrong. He had even read his mother's coffee grinds when she wasn't looking to make sure nothing would go wrong, or to plot out the best course of action to take. No, Sirius had decided finally, nothing could put a cog in these carefully oiled works. He knew what he was doing and he was going to do it. 

Watch out, Remus Lupin, his eyes said.

You're not gonna get away, even if you see it coming. 'Cause I'm determined, this time, I'm not letting anything get in between us this time.

You can't run from me and you can't hide from me anymore.

And soon, Sirius was sure, Remus wouldn't even want to.

On the muggle train station steam huffed ponderously into the air. The world was layered in a gray smog that the sunshine glinting on metal could not slice through, or even penetrate. Trains left and came in, children's faces pressed against the windows and their breaths condensed on the glass. Mothers wheeled babies before them and held suitcases at their sides, plowing through the crowd. Men looking hot and red and very uncomfortable in their suits dozed on benches while waiting for their trains to arrive, or folded and unfolded and re-folded newspapers as if such actions were terribly important and only they knew why.

In Remus's hand the train schedule shivered with the light yet hot summer breeze. His whole body felt damp in the humid English summer. Next to him a woman fanned herself lazily with a thin paperback novel she did not have the patience to read in such heat. Both Remus and Etienne caught the edges of that disruption of the air and took minute and anticipant pleasure from it.

Raised high above the train station, the sweating face of a yawning clock ticked away time in an impossibly slow manner. Remus folded the schedule one way and then the other and the first way again after that, just to keep his hands busy.

"He's always late," he explained softly to his father, who had been matching his watch's time to the time displayed on the station clock. He let his shirt cuff fall back over his wrist, dropping both his hands back to his sides.

"He's not late, yet," Etienne murmured softly, knowing how on edge his son must be, and attempting to placate him. "And if he were to be late, it would be the train's fault, and not his."

"I know," Remus said, brow knitting together. Perhaps if he concentrated hard enough the train coming in on track eight would suddenly appear before them.

"Fifteen minutes."

"Mm."

The heavy air was laden with buzzing flies and the occasional silent mosquito, wings shuddering against the humidity, thriving in the wetness. Time moved slowly, the hands of the great clock having to thrust hard into the heavy air to move even a fraction, denoting the passage of each painfully slow second.  
  
_Hurry up_, Remus willed the train, even though he was terrified of Sirius for all too many reasons.

_Hurry up_, Remus willed the train, so he would find counter-reasons of why _not_ to fear him.

Next to him the woman stopped her fanning and puffed out a sigh. It was resonated in the puffing of smoke from the train pulling out of track five. A mosquito buzzed by his ear and he lifted the train schedule to wave it away.

Minutes passed.

Somehow.

In a little gleam of silver and black, of sunlight catching on the glass windows, the train swerved laboriously into sight, creaking over the tracks, growing towards track eight slowly and quickly all at once. Remus stood and even Etienne found a boyish sort of excitement come over him as he watched the eagerness in Remus's eyes, the light that burst through no matter how he tried to hide it.  
  
As the train pulled into the station Remus rocked forward on his toes, the muscles in his legs tensing, his fingers tightening around the schedule in his hand. The paper crumpled.

"All right," Etienne said softly, noting his son's tension, "come on." He stepped forward, just as eager in his own way to meet this boy, and Remus followed behind him. For all his silence and seemingly calm demeanor, Etienne could sense his son's nervousness as if it were truly tangible in the air. He braced himself, hoping his stolidity would rub off some on Remus's nerves to better brace him.

He had never seen his son this anxious before in his life.

The doors to the train slid open and thick puffs of steam curled up into the sky, a beast coming to rest after a long journey. Women, men and children filed off, the station growing a little louder and a little hotter with the press of their bodies, the flush of the crowd. A baby began to cry, loud and keening in the burning air. Remus didn't blame it for its discomfort one bit.

Behind a man with a bowler hat and a woman whose cheeks were bright pink and shimmering lightly with sweat Sirius appeared, wavering in the heat as if he were some sort of mirage. He'd cut his hair, Remus noted to himself, so that it hung with purposely uneven edges only down to his chin. 

Setting his bag down on the cement beside him, Sirius Black lifted his hands and ran his fingers through his hair, pushing it back out of his eyes. He stood awkwardly, until his eyes caught Remus leaning forward slightly, felt Remus's eyes fixed on him. Sirius lifted a hand and waved, nonchalant, careless and casual. In his chest Remus felt his heart jump.

"That's him," Etienne said, because it couldn't possibly be anyone other than Sirius Black.

"Yes," Remus said.

"Go on," Etienne urged, but Sirius was already walking towards them, dragging his bag behind him. It made a reptilian sound on the concrete beneath it. He walked with a confident air, insouciant and limber, body proud but swaggering. He wasn't full of himself; rather, he was comfortable, with his body and the air surrounding it, and that ease radiated off of him like a soothing cool on the hot summer day. Etienne got the feeling that, in the winter, it would be equally soothing, only warm, as if wherever you were when Sirius was around was the most relaxed place you could possibly be.   
  
"Hey," Sirius said, watching Etienne's son for a moment with cool blue eyes in the oppressive heat, and then he turned towards Etienne, flashing a grin. "Hullo," he said, holding out a hand, "it's very nice to meet you."

"My son has spoken quite a lot about you," Etienne replied, taking that proffered hand in his own and shaking it gravely, though his own eyes twinkled, "so I believe it is my pleasure entirely." They shook hands, then let go. Etienne liked him immediately and immensely.

"Whatever it is, it isn't true," Sirius murmured, that grin not fading once from his face. He must have been, Etienne mused, very terrified but, like Remus, he hid it well; Remus with a solid poker face, this boy with a charming smile.

"Hello, Sirius," Remus said from beside his father. His voice was warm, but it could have just been from the warmth in the air, or from the warmth of Sirius's own smile. It had an effect, that flashing of teeth and that sparkling of deep blue eyes. Beside him, Etienne could feel the tension fade from his son's body, though he knew Remus was still nervous.  
  
"I'll take your bag," Etienne offered, leaning down to pick it up.

"Naw," Sirius said, "thanks, but I got it." He lifted it up again easily. "Let's just get out of this heat, right?" Etienne wondered about how his laugh would sound. Loud, no doubt, echoing on the air and rippling through your own body, so you couldn't help but laugh, yourself. No wondered Remus liked him so much.

"Mm," Etienne said, "very good thinking." 

They piled into the small second-hand Oldsmobile Remus's father had bought a year ago, Remus and Sirius in the back together, Sirius's things piled into the front seat beside Etienne. As they sped out of the parking lot, drawing away from the train station, a breeze rifled through their hair, pressed in from the open windows. There was a silence but it was not uncomfortable, thin and feathery and surprisingly pleasant.

Beside Remus, on the fading upholstery of the car seat, Sirius had slid his hand across the distance between them. His palm was oddly cool, even in the heat, as he rested his hand lightly over Remus's own. He tilted his head to the side, watching Remus's face, his own cast in shadow as a premonition of the rain to come.

"So," Sirius said, flopping his suitcase down on Remus's bed, "this is your room." It was just as Sirius had imagined it, sunlight streaming in through an open window, the bed small and neatly made, a high bookshelf in one corner filled with all kinds of books. He moved around in a slow circle to take everything in, storing it methodically in his memory. Once he was done, he grinned again. "S'just like you, Moony."

"Thank you, I think," Remus murmured, standing on the edge of something just outside Sirius's world. He felt as if he were detached from himself, watching Sirius move from a hidden spot in a corner, or perhaps on the ceiling.

"S'pretty hot here," Sirius said, moving to the window so he could stare out, keep his eyes from Remus's own, gather his strength. It was one thing planning everyone out when he was lying alone in his bed at night. It was quite another thing acting on all that he'd planned, with Remus so close to him, and so real.

"Yes," Remus agreed, "it is."

"I'm not used to it being like this."

"No?"

"It's cold in Rhondda," Sirius explained.

"Right."

"Rains a lot, too."

"Mm. Sounds better than this heat."

"Yeah."

Silence fell between them. Without their hands touching it was uncomfortable, their small motions staggering helplessly. Even their breaths choked, catching on the tightness in their throats.

"Why don't you talk to me, Moony?" Sirius asked at last.

"Sirius," Remus said, and then he could find nothing else to say after that.

"I'm not going to attack you."

"I never said I thought you were."

"Then what happened? What's happening?"

"You know what," Remus murmured, touching his own cheek in memory. His eyes were like amber, all of him trapped deep inside the haunting colors.

"I meant it, Moony." Sirius's gut clenched. He felt as if he were going to be sick. "I miss you."

"I'm standing right here."

"You could just as well be in India."

"But I'm right here."

"It used to be different."

"It's different now," Remus corrected. Sirius turned to face Remus, hands clenched into fists, as if he could punch the situation a couple of times to make it go away. It wasn't much better, Remus thought absently, than his own helpless hands, not even beginning to put up a fight.

"Why don't you understand?" Sirius whispered.

"You never tried to explain anything to me."

"Then let me get close enough to try, Sirius said, taking a slow step forward. It was like approaching a wild animal, or a wounded horse with panic in its gentle equine eyes. But Remus stood his ground, body tensed and small. Sirius leaned over and took his hand, feeling slow as his motions, time's passage connected to their hesitation. Their fingers wove together. "Moony," Sirius murmured.

_But what if he knew?_ Remus's mind nagged, gnawing at his heart.

_How much would he hate you then?_ It snarled nastily.

_Could you risk such a loss?_

Remus didn't want to lie to Sirius. But it wasn't necessary that he had to find out. Lies were necessary for him, laced in with how he breathed, moved, spent his time, watched things and was watched by them in turn.

"I just want to touch you, like this," Sirius breathed out softly.

"All right," Remus acquiesced. They held each other's hands for a few minutes, just like that, standing face to face and watching the way their lashes trembled when their eyes forced them to blink.

When Etienne called them both down to dinner things with no names had changed, in the air between their bodies, in the spaces between their fingers. Even Etienne could feel it, though he was old, the cutting edge of his youth long forgotten, his displaced heart beating slowly as a clock unwinding and forgotten in the attic-musk dark.

The heat broke and the summer became comfortable again. The sun did not beat down on the world below it and the light it radiated was cheerful, not glaring. Canterbury was not cool but it was not too hot, either, and the days were pleasant, the nights pleasanter with the stars twinkling on and off in the breeze. 

As soon as Remus stopped trying to ascribe a name to this thing that lingered, ticking away time with an a-rhythmic beat, between his and Sirius's hearts, things became much less complicated, relations much more relaxed. It wasn't a matter of categorizing anything, Remus realized finally, after thinking otherwise for too long. It was just sitting back, feeling comfortable with Sirius's presence, and waiting for things to happen. Once he gave up trying to control it, it would play out well enough on his own.

In the first few mornings Remus finished reading Sirius The Count of Monte Cristo as Sirius rested himself against Remus's lap in breathless anticipation. They moved on to Hamlet, which had Sirius tensed and anxious in his seat, and Remus couldn't help but equate Sirius to the prince of the tragedy. Rash and impulsive, in that respect - for Remus had never seen Hamlet as hesitant, but rather as plowing head first into things before he paused to even think. Definitely, Remus decided finally, like Sirius Black.

During the long days they wandered outside with the sunshine cast down upon them, warm and friendly, inclusive in the revelations of soft secrets. 

Sometimes, they held hands.

Their fingers interlaced, they would walk along the cobblestone, broken here and there, with Sirius's feet scuffing scones in front of them. Etienne let them go out whenever they wanted and left them to their own means. Remus's eyes had changed radically since Etienne had seen them on the platform, waiting for the train. He let Sirius do what he could, and stayed wistfully away from his son and his son's friend for the duration of Sirius's visit.

They would talk of everything or of nothing at all, of James and Lilly, of classes and teachers, of Hogwarts, or perhaps not even of school at all. They would talk about the future as they saw it, or didn't see it. They rarely ever talked about the past. As the young tend to do, they kept their eyes focused forward on an almost palpable image of what would be, what they would be, waiting with aching impatience for time to pass so they could finally be it. The specific details were blurry for the both of them, but as Sirius knew without a doubt Remus would be there, Remus assumed that Sirius would be a constant in his life whose presence he could depend upon. 

There were times also that they did not need to speak at all, when they held each other's hands tightly and watched their interlaced fingers unchanging between their thighs. Their footsteps became the rhythm which dictated their breaths and their words, or their lack of words. They learned to easily judge each other's moods and thoughts by watching the way shadows fell over their cheeks, or the way they kept their faces angled - towards or away. It was in this way that Remus learned how Sirius walked, with a loping, canine grace to his limbs, a proud angle to his back that did not suggest dignity but rather confidence. It was in these moments that Sirius found how much he could read in the movements of Remus's eyelids, how much he could feel in the lines and curves of his lips, how much he could understand through the temperature and movements of his graceful hands.

It was in these moments that Sirius began to feel strong and invincible, and Remus began to drink in such feelings into himself and thrive upon them. People did not have roots, flowers did, but what served as Remus and Sirius's roots began to wind together, twining into knots that would be close to impossible to break. What Remus felt, Sirius felt almost as acutely, and the same went for the two in the other direction. 

When they didn't hold hands it felt as if they were, those roots clasped like their fingers. They only needed to be close. Separating them would be like uprooting them from these comfortable routines they had fallen into.

In the nights they watched movies, had ice cream, at fish and chips and reveled in the grease of it, the youth of it. On the couch in the sparsely furnished living Remus allowed himself to curl up against Sirius's side, in the circle of his arm, and they fell asleep that way many nights before the movies even ended. They learned the way their bodies fit together most comfortably, that way, with Remus's head on Sirius's shoulder or Sirius's cheek resting on Remus's thigh, one of Sirius's arms snaked around Remus's waist or Remus's fingers tangling in Sirius's hair.

On one ordinary day Sirius took Remus out to a movie and in the comfort of the air-conditioning, against the prickling of the seat coverings against their bared skin, Sirius pushed up the arm rest between them. Barrier removed, he pulled Remus against him, and Remus leaned eagerly into that embrace.

"This," Sirius said, softly and firmly into Remus's ear, "is a date." His breath tickled over Remus's earlobe and cheek.

"I didn't know that," Remus murmured back against Sirius's chin.

"Well," Sirius stated, with more confidence than he actually felt, "now you know."

"I've never been on a date before." Remus's eyes wandered absently to the picture flickering over the movie screen. "I'm not sure I know quite how to act."

"Leave that to me," Sirius said, running his fingers through Remus's hair. "Trust me just a little, will you."

"All right," Remus returned against Sirius's jaw. The bigger boy shivered. Remus was clueless and utterly intoxicating. It was his smell, it was his feel his skin and his hair and especially his lips, shaped by all his deliciously soft-spoken words.

"Sshh," hissed a large woman seated behind them, and they fell silent for the rest of the movie, Sirius toying with the hair at the base of Remus's neck.

After that they bought ice cream and walked the streets in the fading light of dusk with contentment settling pleasurably between them, over the darkening city. Sirius watched Remus from the corners of his eyes, noting how the cone he ate was of course chocolate, how he kept pushing back his too-long bangs so they wouldn't fall into his eyes and obscure his vision. Remus's face was delicate, finely sculpted, more beautiful than Ellen Abott's for all that was captured in those expressions that played over his features. And of course there were those eyes, those fantastic eyes, which made Sirius shiver every time he thought of them and drown each time he saw them. Sirius realized his heart began to swell whenever he saw the curve of Remus's cheekbone, or the way his lips pursed in thought, or curved in a smile at the sweetness of chocolate.

"Thank you, Sirius," Remus murmured suddenly from behind his ice cream cone, "for showing me how stupid I am."

"What?" Sirius asked incredulously, shocked into abandoning the bit of broken cobblestone he had been using like a football.

"Thank you, Sirius, for showing me how stupid I am," Remus repeated, then added as clarification, "and for not letting me end up such an idiot as I otherwise might have, without you there to prevent it."

"Don't know what you're talking about," Sirius scoffed, fending off a blush, "you're not the bloody stupid one, I am." Remus licked at the ice cream thoughtfully, the cold sweetness against his lips and his tongue, making his teeth want to shiver.

"No," Remus said, very softly, "no, you're not."

"You're daft," Sirius muttered, trying to keep his cheeks cool.

"Point proven."

"Aw -- didn't mean it that way."

"But you said it, anyway." Remus smiled that half-smile of his, inclining his head to the side so he could look up sideways at his friend's face. "You're not scared of anything, are you?" Despite that smile, Sirius could tell Remus was completely serious, his eyes somber. You could always tell by Remus's eyes, Sirius knew, just what it was he was feeling, though the hows and the whys were always unclear.

"Scared of a lot of things." Sirius met that gaze firmly. 

"You don't show it."

"Doesn't mean I'm not scared. Besides," Sirius went on, frowning faintly, not at anyone in particular but rather in thought, "you don't ever show it, either."

"It's different." The street lamps would come on soon. It was the end of day and the beginning of night. There would be stars in the sky, but they would be obscured by a thin layer of smog from the nearby factories that hung over the city. It was a night like any other.

"Not really. You hide things one way and I hide 'em another. Doesn't mean it's any different, you know, when you get right down to it."

"Fine," Remus said thoughtfully, "then you're braver than I am."

"No," Sirius said, "just stupider, and more careless."

In the darkness Remus thought of Hamlet and of Edmond and of Sirius, of the differences, of the similarities. And then he thought simply of Sirius, and how he could not be compared to anything -- except, perhaps, to these simple summer days -- and felt suddenly strong down to the marrow of his bones.

In the darkness Sirius thought of Remus and the poetry of his eyes, how Sirius himself had never understood or even particularly liked poetry until he saw the flecks of gold in Remus's eyes catch the sunlight. And then he thought simply of Remus's eyes, and how poetry could not possibly do them justice.

Remus to Sirius was just Remus, nothing for the translation of him, for the filtering, for the vocabulary. He just was.

Remus could not think that way, had to go at things through words, find the meanings that way and then discard the words afterwards, left only with the inner truth.

Both of them knew each other, from these days together, as well and as deeply and as naively as they knew themselves.

"You're not stupid," Remus said after a while, "but careless, yes."

"Yeah, well, you know who I'm _not_," Sirius replied, "I'm _not_ James Potter." There was a bitterness that stemmed from the well of longing in Sirius's voice. Remus had never thought Sirius could be jealous of James before, but as he watched Sirius's face, he realized that he quite obviously was.

"No," Remus said carefully.

"Sorry."

"Don't be." A pause. Remus heard his footsteps behind him on the cobblestone, going nowhere in particular, ambling off behind him like a shadow severed. "You're jealous of him."

"Yeah. Guess so. Feels bad," Sirius went on suddenly, "'cause we've been friends for so long. But he's -- you know. He's the smart one. Does well in all his classes, on the Quidditch team, had Lilly from the start and probably always will. Just -- kinda hard, not to be jealous of him. He's got everything. Always has." Sirius watched the backs of his hands befored him, his hands which seemed incomplete without Remus's against them.

"You know," Remus murmured thoughtfully, "I think he's jealous of you. Half the school is." Sirius shrugged.

"Doesn't mean anything."

"It means as much as your jealousy does." In their walking they had moved closer to each other, shoulders almost brushing.

"S'pose." Sirius turned his eyes on Remus's face. It was lit up by the sudden pool of light cast from a lamppost they were passing under. "Well. There's one thing James Potter doesn't have that I think -- that I think I do."

"What's that?"

"You. Do I, Moony? Do I have you?"

As children making each other green rings out of dandelion stems and placing them on their betrothed's fingers with solemn promises of misunderstood forever, they wed each other by watching the circles of light refracted and echoing in their eyes. 

Dark was the city and dark were the shadows in the side alleyways along the street. The silence curled around that darkness like two snakes sleeping together intertwined, stuffed full with pigeon eggs.

Words seemed hardly appropriate but they were desperately needing. Inadequacies reared their heads high before them. Insufficiencies pounded through their blood and filled the spaces behind and before them. Unexplained, this time that passed between them with the world heavy and slowed down. They had stopped walking, now stood to face each other. The next words that came would be promises and they were promises they would have to forever keep or forever live in the shameful memory of breaking them.

They were aware of how incomplete they felt, missing pieces to a greater puzzle, or perhaps bigger than that, two halves of a whole, not big enough to stand on their own, needing each other for even the simplest of tasks. Needing each other even for breathing out and breathing in.

The spaces between them were angular, like the corners to a dark and cold room. The shadows those corners made, splaying out from their feet and mimicking their youthful bodies in ageing spite, whispered to each other of frightful things. They spoke of strangers and of a thousand different directions stretched out on the horizon, insinuating the impossibility of ever knowing where you're going and the misery of knowing where you've come from.

Childhood alienation seemed complete and completely terrifying.

Forever seemed possible but it was unsure whether or not this was something to be confident in or glad about.

"You have me," Remus said, watching the rings of dark blue circle endlessly in Sirius's eyes, "for as long as you want me."

And it was then that forever seemed possible, within Sirius's reach, against his yet un-callused fingertips, and that forever was Remus Lupin and the soft words on his lips. Words were like books and books were forever, lasted every time you read them over. Sirius would last forever and forever was as long as Remus would speak his name.

In the darkness Sirius said, "I have you," but he wasn't even sure if he'd said it, later on. They didn't need to touch each other, stood that way, facing each other along intersecting lines and feeling their veins pound like roots gleaning sustenance from the earth and from each other.

They could have stood like that for minutes or for hours and it would have made no difference, would have amounted eventually to the same thing. For them, for then, time meant nothing and realized it, too, so it did not pass the same in that one spot beneath that one street lamp, with the moths fluttering fuzzily up to the heat and the blinding light, lured more often than not to their bright deaths beneath the lamplight. In carefree moments like those time was kind to young lovers who were just beginning to fall in love in a hot city on a cooling summer night. A night that spoke of dreams weaving themselves through silent bedrooms in the darkened apartments above the pavement. A few cars were moving through the streets but Sirius and Remus were watching each other, were watching time pass silkily over each other's foreheads, creasing their skin. 

Time did not matter and childhood was something they were easing slowly out of, a snake shedding its skin, a snail outgrowing its shell.

In silence that knew nothing of chocolate or children they walked the half empty streets back to the apartment building and lingered outside it, watching the stars waver through the clouds and the smog.

"Who needs to be jealous, anyway?" Sirius asked, breaking the quiet, which had inserted itself sinuously between them.

"Some people," Remus replied.

"Yeah, but -- I mean, not me, anyway." Sirius grinned to himself.

"Everyone," Remus said finally, "looks at the same stars. It just depends on how they look at them." Sirius looked him up and down.

"Told you I was the stupid one," he mumbled. He understood exactly what Remus had said but the boy had a way of saying things and making them seem so simple and so beautiful at once. "You gonna ever write, later on, Moony?"

"I don't think so. Most things have been said, already."

"Then I'll help you find new things to say," Sirius insisted.

"But," Remus sighed, "everyone has been looking at the same stars for centuries now."

"Depends on how you look at them, you said. You look at things, Moony, and they're wonderful 'cause it's your eyes seeing 'em."

"I'd end up being jealous of people who said things in ways I couldn't dream of," Remus said. "Let's go inside."

"I'm not jealous anymore," Sirius said, very softly. He wished, deep inside of him, that Remus wouldn't be, either. It was a silent and unspoken agreement that because Sirius had Remus, Remus had Sirius, as well, and while Sirius was content just in knowing this, he wasn't sure if Remus was. 

As they took the elevator up to the fourteenth floor they stood in opposite corners, Sirius lounging as he always managed to, Remus finding comfort in the place where wall met wall and then met the floor and they all three joined into one.

It was, Sirius figured as they stepped off the elevator, a pretty good date, all in all. He couldn't fully believe he'd managed to get up the courage. Despite Remus's odd misconception of Sirius's supposed bravery, he'd been absolutely terrified, and had plowed onward with his head bowed low, just so he wouldn't have to face defeat in the eye.

He was lucky, he mused after that, as they said goodnight to Etienne reading in the living room and moved down the hall from him towards Remus's bedroom.

They brushed their teeth conscientiously, a force of habit, and dressed for bed, Sirius doing so in the bathroom with the door closed.

He looked at himself in the mirror, at his face which he knew the girls liked, at his hair which he knew the girls liked, too, the way they could run their fingers through it, or whatever it was they preferred to do. Cutting it revealed more of his face, made him look a little older, he felt. As a boy, he wanted only to look like a man.

It depended on how you looked at things, though.

He peered closer at himself, squinted at his face, smooth with adolescence, unmarked by time or weariness or age, clean of wisdom, misery and pain. That was why he looked so young, but he didn't know it, and it just pissed him off.

He wondered what he looked like through Remus's eyes.

By the side of his bed Remus stared down at his feet, awkwardly silent even when alone as he waited for Sirius to return. He wanted the other boy's words to shape him in the mirror, down to his toes and up to his brow. Words could caress as well as any touch was capable of, if not perhaps better. Sometimes, Remus thought to himself, in that secret place where his heart met his mind, hands were clumsy and too careless for the gentleness of such relations. One mistake and all was crushed.

When Sirius reappeared into the bedroom Remus was sitting on the edge of his bed and Sirius moved to sit next to him. He did not watch the book, half-open on Remus's lap, but rather the hand Remus had rested on the quilt beside his thigh.

" 'For who would bear the whips and scorns of time'," Remus said, and then stopped as Sirius covered Remus's hand with his own. 

"You read that one, already," Sirius pointed out, "you were further on when you stopped last night."

"Right," Remus murmured, "I was at 'There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will'"

"Right," Sirius echoed, and leaned forward, kissing the corner of Remus's mouth very gently. A flash of courage had surged up in his veins and he rode upon its mounting waves, giddy with helplessness. His lips moved from Remus's after that, lifted to his brow, dropped to the side of his neck. Remus's heart fluttered in his chest as if it were a falling sparrow.

Their first kiss, their lips brushing together, came after that and was swift, nothing particularly wonderful about it besides the obvious amazement of being kissed with a kiss you truly longed for. Their second was deeper, and longer, more explorative and curious than passionate, and Remus found that he didn't want to close his eyes to it. Sirius could kiss exceedingly well, had obviously had a good deal of experience, but Remus did not allow himself to feel nervous or intimidated. Rather, he kept his eyes on Sirius's eyes and kissed Sirius lips as Sirius did the same. Sirius's breath was hot against Remus's face, their breath mingling and mixing in the diminished space between them. It was comfortable and inquiring. They were just beginning to learn each other, the spaces of their mouths, the curves of their lips, the feel of their hot breath passing between them.

Their third kiss merged into their fourth and their fourth into their fifth, Sirius's hands moving from Remus's cheeks through his hair, his body pressing close. Remus's fingers rested on Sirius's shoulders, neck, face, tracing patterns on his skin and in doing so learning every detail as a blind boy would. Beneath them the bedsprings creaked and the bedsheets rustled, a humming whisper, gossip sliding beneath their legs.

Sirius's hands were warm and uncallused, though they seemed less boyish than Remus might have expected.

Remus was unafraid. He was warm and more a part of his body than he had ever been in his life, and he was unafraid. He had given himself to Sirius, which meant he had belonged to himself in the first place. Just knowing that was power, made him feel powerful. And the kisses were not as he had once planned for. They were not filled with fire and burning, unbridled passion. He found, though, that they were just as he wanted them. From Sirius. And that was all that mattered.

At an unspoken agreement they broke off their kisses and the warm connection between their lips. Sirius continued to stroke Remus's hair away from his face and back against his ears. As he did so his fingers brushed lightly against the smaller boy's cheek, which was the softest thing he had ever felt in all his life.

"Ah," Sirius said. So that was how it was supposed to be. He'd been doing it wrong all along, and he was, deep in the very center of his stomach, fiercely glad he'd finally gotten it right. Against the palm of his hand the side of Remus's face was warm, flushed as if he were blushing.

Remus said nothing.

It didn't seem necessary after that to speak, and it was less necessary for Sirius to move all the way from Remus's bed back to the roll-away mattress he'd been sleeping on throughout the visit. He kept Remus instead tucked close to his chest as they sank back against the pillow, feeling the top of his head tickle the bottom of his own cheek, and they fell asleep like that after a while, each of them breathing along the same steady rhythms. Their contentment was palpable in the air, but neither of them could feel it in sleep.

The same smile did not fade from Remus's cheek even as he slept.

And as he slept he dreamed a long dream, filled with twisting corridors and the roots of a thousand old oak trees.

It was a forest in which Sirius?s arms became the branches of a proud but weathered oak and he was leaning against it, rocked by its embrace.

The sounds of a night-owl mourned a circle in the shell of his ear, writhing through him to the very center of his soul.

But he ignored it because of the warmth he felt and the smile on his lips that did not taste solely of himself any longer.

The woods knew a song, the song of their roots, that you are stronger for the trees around you and their roots in your roots, more of your own tree when there are other trees to compare yourself with.

Rocked in the embrace of the oak he knew in this dream that he was dreaming, and that the moon had no power over him and his hands and the words that speckled the grass as dew would, when the early morning sun began to rise.

There were also no snakes in this world, sliding dryly over the earth, over stones and the strongest, thickest oak roots bared to the wind. 

They listened to the hooting of the owl and made a rough, sssa-sssa sound to each other, creating codes in the dawn's light.

And then the dream was darkness, only rest, belonging to himself less than his dreams but more than his own body.

With his lips pressed up against Remus's cheek Sirius slept, too, the deep sleep of one so fully drunk on satisfaction that it threatened to flood all his smiles. His dreams were pleasant and light, holding no weight to affect his face or press down hard on his chest. 

He and Remus were holding each other's hands, fingers moving lightly against fingers, touches as soft and as gentle as the breeze, or butterfly wings against your temple in a dark and cobwebbed night.

At the end the visit they had kissed enough to no longer keep count of each particular one, and how it felt, and how long it lasted. They stopped counting also how many times they touched - not because it was no longer important to them but because they did not feel things so fleeting should be kept on file in their minds. They preferred instead to kiss and to touch and to enjoy it, and to remember later the way the sun was shining down upon them, or the way their laughter danced together like leaves tossed upon the air, and not how many or how much or how often.

At the end of the visit it seemed impossible to separate the two of them, moving together and thinking together, unable to go minutes without each other's touch. Etienne felt like the villain in a romantic ballad, tearing two lovers asunder as he drove Sirius back to the train station and helped him unload his bags from the trunk of the car. He stood aside to let them say their goodbyes, watching the way Sirius touched Remus's forearm and the way Remus tilted his head to the side with a slight, slight blush at the touch.

"Au revoir," Remus said, very softly, because Sirius enjoyed those words he couldn't understand simply for the way they sounded on Remus's tongue.

"What's that?" Sirius decided to attempt it, wincing as the words came out brokenly on his lips. "'Oh voir?'"

"It means, 'until we see each other again,'" Remus explained.

"Oh." Sirius flushed. "Not gonna try it. Sounds better when you say it, anyway. Bye, Remus." He chanced a touch to that one spot he loved on the side of Remus's jaw, just below his cheek. It felt good, and neither of them were blushing because of anyone's eyes on them. The blush was because of soft skin against softer skin and the way it made their cheeks flush hot.

"Goodbye."

Sirius shook Etienne's hand not somberly but seriously, and they said goodbye like old friends might. In the back of Etienne's expression Sirius thought he could see understanding and knowledge and a request.

"I will," Sirius said to Etienne, even though he didn't know what the question was, or what the right answer would turn out to be. Etienne seemed to be satisfied with it, though, nodding once in approval.

"Go on," he said, "or you'll miss your train."

"As much as I want to," Sirius added, and then he left without looking back, knowing the second that the train pulled out of the station was the second he started counting the seconds until school started again.

The seats were comfortable enough and he sat with his bag pressed between his ankles as he fingered the vial of moonshine that dangled from the string around his neck.

"Moonshine," he said softly to himself, before allowing his eyes to search out Remus, standing small and firm on the platform.

And perhaps that was what Remus was, not moonlight but moonshine, something all the more precious and all the more amazing.

And perhaps that was just where he wanted Remus to stay, close to his heart, arms wrapped around his neck.

Sirius left the station much the same way he came in: his hands itching to press, childish, against the glass and his eyes clinging to the sight of Remus Lupin that stayed in one place as he himself unwillingly drew away.

"Does he?" Etienne asked his son.

"Yes," Remus said, very softly.

The train pulled out of the station, sleek black body rumbling down the tracks. Remus could taste memories on his lips, had made memories against them and with him and had them stored in his mind like he would store a bar of chocolate in his pocket to last him the whole, bleak day.

"I like him very much," Etienne said, watching with his son the last car disappear over the edge of the horizon.

"Yes," Remus said, rubbing his cheek pensively, "so do I." The thought of anyone not liking him seemed foreign and strange, unusual and unorthodox. Sirius was Sirius, his summer and his kisses and his remembrance of chocolate ice cream melting in its cones, over his fingers, sweet and sticky.

"Let's go," Etienne said, giving his son's shoulder a light squeeze.

"Yes," Remus said, feeling hollow but hopeful, "let's."

The cool Rhondda air was a welcome change to the stuffy city atmosphere. Canterbury had been hot, the perfect temperature at night but the temperature just slightly too elevated during the sunny days.

Sirius sat with his body sprawled out over the river bank

"You look like an idiot, like that," Michael said beside him, smoking a half burnt-out fag, his fishing rod making a lazy line across Sirius's vision of the sky.

"Do you know," Sirius said, "what it feels like to be in love?" His hair felt soft against his own neck and bared shoulders. The sun was a friend in the sky he understood. 

"No." Michael grinned widely. "But I do know what a little girl you're turning out to be."

"C'mon, Michael," Sirius muttered, forgetting entirely to be annoyed.

"Asking me about love, laying about like Cassy when she's moody, staring up at the sky -- Sirius Black, you're a bloody adorable little girl."

"Do me a bit of a favor, Michael, and drown yourself."

"I won't. Sorry I can't oblige. But I can tell you that no, I never have been in love, so I can't say what it's like. I can also tell you that yes, my darling little brother, it looks like you are _very_ much in love." Sirius seemed oddly satisfied with this response, despite the fact that Michael was purposely trying to get on his nerves. "Well," Michael said, after a while, letting his fishing line go slack, "should I be congratulating you and the little lady, then?"

"Go fuck yourself," Sirius said half-heartedly.

"I'll pass," Michael murmured, highly amused.

"Getting any bites?" Sirius asked after a while of silence had passed between them, companionable, just bristling with the tension of frayed nerves.

"No. Are you really in love?"

"I dunno. S'why I was asking you."

"Oh. It'd be kinda funny if you were, don't you think?"

"Why?" That, of all things, rubbed Sirius the wrong way.

"You're _young_, Sirius. I know you like to think you're fantastically grown up but you're _young_. People your age just -- well, they don't fall in love."

"Yeah. S'what I thought."

And it made sense.

But then there was the way Remus sounded, his breaths ragged in his throat, like when they got down to really kissing that one time in his bed and it wasn't just kissing for kissing anymore but kissing to satisfy themselves in new, wonderful places. He had pressed Remus down onto his bed in the darkness late one night and things had suddenly change to be hot and tense in the pit of his stomach, and he was acutely aware of small things, like the bridge of Remus's nose pressed against his own cheek, and the feel of Remus's teeth against his tongue, and the spots were their hipbones ground together accidentally, and then again on purpose as they tried to recreate that feeling. It was that little sound Remus made, breathless and all worked up, that Sirius's mind had lingered on. Something, a part of Remus, previously undiscovered.

Then, there was the way that his hair fell into his eyes and made him wrinkle up his nose in annoyance. He didn't want to cut his hair but he didn't want it blowing around in his face, either. So there were times on windy days when they were walking together that he couldn't keep his hair out of his face and eyes. It was distracting, Remus had said, and especially so to Sirius, as he couldn't help but lean over to brush it back and away from his forehead. And that led to their being closer, and that led to their kissing, and that was definitely quite a distraction to the both of them, one that lasted sometimes for almost an hour.

Then, there was the way that he read, his voice low and deep and feeling the words more than he could ever feel any human touch.

"Yeah. Can't be in love," Sirius said, laughing softly.

"But you like her a lot, don't you," Michael murmured, and the fishing line went taut as a silvery body was lured in by the worm and thus snagged on the hook.

"Yeah," Sirius said, rolling over onto his stomach and watching the dirt -- unchanging and moist, pleasantly warm -- stay silent and still between his body and the earth. "I like her a lot." He took the fag from Michael's fingers suddenly and took a long drag on it himself. The coughing fire burned through his lungs from it and he kept from choking out loud by sheer will. Michael watched him with a bemused look, one brow lifted high in his forehead.

"What're you trying to prove, Sirius?" Michael asked as Sirius took another long drag. It was easier than the first, though it was by no means pleasant at all.

"S'not bad," Sirius said, handing the cigarette back to his brother.

"The look on your face says otherwise."

"Hm. I'll get used to it. You did."

"Right," Michael said, looking skeptical.

If it took growing up to love Remus, Sirius thought to himself, then he was damn well going to get a start on it, so he could be as close to that goal as possible by the end of the summer. If it took growing up to love Remus, Sirius wasn't going to waste any of his precious time.

  
  
  
  
  
TRANSLATION  
Why not?  
I don't know.  
You know, Remus.  
My friend, Sirius...  
Your friend.  
Yes.   
How do you like (lit:love) him?  
I don't...  
Don't lie to me, Remus. Don't tell me lies.  
Forgive me. (lit:pardon me)  
Tell me the truth.  
I love him.  
That's all?  
With all my heart.  
And the wolf?  
...the wolf also.  
He pleases you. Yes?  
Yes.  
And with him, you laugh...always?  
Yes.  
For you -- for you, Remus, I am happy.  
Thank you, papa. 


	8. Chapter Seven: Mon Cœur S'ouvre A Ta Voi...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~   
**Chapter Seven: Mon C¦ur S'ouvre A Ta Voix  
What happens**: Well, I surmounted extremely painful writer's block and here it is! Chapter Seven, in which Sirius finds out at last about Remus's secret, among other things. Writer's block sucks. :/ ::sigh:: R&R! I'm beggin'. ;.;   
**Main Characters**: Remus J. Lupin, Sirius Black  
**Subsidiary Characters**: James Potter, Lilly Evans, Peter Pettigrew; Severus Snape, Lucius Malfoy; Professor Voldemort, Professor McGonagall; Etienne Ibert  
**Couples You Will Find In This Fic (Whether You Like It Or Not)**: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin; James Potter/Lilly Evans; Severus wanting Remus's body; a hint or two of Lucius Malfoy/Severus Snape; other relationships of both a homosexual and heterosexual nature  
**Dedication**: This fic is dedicated to **No one**, who's always been there for me no matter what. .;  
**This is**: **chapter four** of a **work in progress**. Like all my **works in progress**, it is possible that you will be **waiting** a **very long time** between **installments**, or they could come out **daily** in a **psychotic** and rather **frightening** fashion. **Do Not Worry**! Just take it **as it comes**, and feel free to send me **demanding fan mail **(all **demanding fan mail** should be sent to **IremusJLupin@aol.com**) if you feel you've been waiting **an egregiously long time**. **Demanding fan mail** is **annoying** sometimes, but on the whole it makes me feel **incredibly cool**. And **that's what it's all about**, right? **Oh yes**. And I am also **constantly updating** **chapters** that have already been **uploaded**, whenever I find a **hideous spelling error** or a **problem with grammar**. So check back **often**.  
**C&C**: is **demanded**. Or, you know, **desperately longed for**, in a rather **pathetic **sense. Just gimme some of that **good ol' fashioned R&R**, and let me know you actually do want to **see more of my work**.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ****

  
Chapter VII: Mon C¦ur S'ouvre A Ta Voix

It was a pleasantly cool day, the sun bright but not overbearing, the breeze light, kind enough to filter over you and keep your body at just the right temperature. It was the sort of day where you felt comfortable in your skin, where you couldn't help but lean into life calmly, coolly, with all your eagerness swelling up in your chest, glinting only through your eyes.

Sirius stood on Platform 9 and 3/4, leaning satisfactorily into life. He held a lit, half-burned fag between his fingers. It made him, he figured, look significantly matured. It also made him feel as if he weren't a child any longer; had passed smoothly through into being as much of a man as he felt was necessary for his purposes.

And, he had discovered, the hardest part about being a man was looking patient, even as he scanned the crowed for that familiar, tousled head, those familiar gold eyes catching the sunlight, that familiar smile tugging up Remus's lips as Sirius caught his gaze.

Sirius had been waiting all summer for this. His fingers itched. He brought the fag to his lips and took a long drag, blowing the smoke out into the air before him. It flowed out in a steady stream before his face, and then floated off lazily into the air above his head, rising up but dispersing long before it could reach the burning of the sun.

"I didn't know you'd started smoking." 

Looking like a man also happened to require keeping your cool, no matter what, unless you were trying to be truly manly, in which case you had to yell a lot and seem in general as if you were highly opinionated, knowing just what you were talking about, too strong-willed to ever back down from your beliefs. 

Therefore, simply hearing Remus speak from behind him proved to be a problem for Sirius, for it was all the dark haired boy could do to keep his cool, and keep from whirling around and grabbing the owner of that voice up into his arms.

"Just started," Sirius murmured softly, tilting his head back and managing to stay perfectly still, "a month or so ago."

"Ah." Sirius's body ached in that _way_, and he forcibly kept his hand steady as he took another drag lazy, nonchalant. "Any other changes?"  
  
"Nah," Sirius said, tossing his cigarette to the ground and crushing it beneath his heel. Only then did he allow himself to turn around and face the smaller boy eye to eye, and he still had to restrain himself from giving in to that eagerness for touch.

"Hullo, Sirius," Remus said, very softly.

"Hullo, Moony," Sirius replied, lips quirking up into a grin he just couldn't help. No man, Sirius figured, should ever need to hide how good he was feeling, if he was feeling _that_ good. "S'been a while."

"No," Remus said wryly, "it hasn't. But it feels like that, doesn't it?" And Sirius laughed, out of sheer happiness.

When you were truly young, you could do that, laugh for all the gladness that you felt and all the intensity of your yet un-callused heart, emotions tender and made all the more fierce for that youthful, callow tenderness.

Like the softest of roses with the sharpest of thorns, protecting in fierce determination the velvet petals, the delicate scent, the sensitive blossom.

"Let's get our own seats," Sirius said, smelling slight of tobacco, a darker tan to his skin and a brighter sparkle to his eyes. "We don't have to wait for the others, do we?"  
  
"No," Remus murmured softly, "I don't think we have to. I don't think I want to, either."

As they both leaned down to pick up their bags their cheeks nearly brushed together, light as a whisper, the add sliding between them. Remus felt himself shiver, but he didn't know why, even as little fingers of hesitant excitement, tickled down his spine.  
  
"C'mon," Sirius murmured to Remus's cheek as they straightened, "let's go." Remus nodded and kept himself carefully close by Sirius's side. Conversations brushed by his ears, words seeming almost tangible, though he let them float by unimportantly.

Inside the train the air was chill, as if the train were air-conditioned as a ward against the summer heat. Perhaps it was a new invention by the Ministry of Magic. Lately, they men and women who worked there had been coming up with all sorts of new ideas, most of their efforts going towards the development of new 'technology,' which combined muggle inventions with a dash of magic here and there as improvements. Remus had read a few interesting books on the topic over the summer and wondered if perhaps there might be a class offered in Hogwarts teaching such skills, one day. His interest had been caught by the idea, certainly.

The two of them picked out a car filled with sunlight and slid their suitcases underneath the seats, sitting down together afterwards, side by side.

"So," Sirius said, his eyes fixed bravely upon the faraway, flushed curve of Remus's cheek, "how have you been?"

"All right," Remus replied, calmly. A moment later, upon some unspoken cue directed by their lonely palms, they took each other's hands. Remus blinked down at their clasped fingers, tan in pale, warm against cold.

"Hey," Sirius said softly, "your hands are cold." Remus moved closer to Sirius's side, the familiar and comforting line of it. They drew up against each other, the blanket of the deep blue sky against the inconsolable moon. Once the train started they, in their singularity made of two, in their privacy that could never indicate loneliness, shared their first kiss of the school year, Sirius tasting and smelling of tobacco over Sirius, Remus tasting of chocolate over Remus. "Things that would always be the same, their lips together, despite the small things that could and would change with the passage of time. Sirius took Remus up on his lap and whether they kissed or touched or simply lay still but for their breaths in each other's embrace, they felt and heard and understood their heartbeats pumping together.

Time did not seem to pass. It was as in sleeping, a loop in your conscious, when one moment you closed your eyes in the night and the next, when you blinked them open, you saw the first rays of morning through the windowshade. They pulled away from each other and tugged on their robes in a silence finally broken by the announcement of their fifteen minutes to Hogwarts warning.

"You excited?" Sirius tugged his worn robes on careless, shaking his hair out once he had pushed his head through. 

"A little," Remus replied with a wry smile. His own robe made Sirius's look brand new, but neither of them ever commented on such shabbiness.

"You're never excited about anything much," Sirius said, without any accusation in his voice.

"That's not true." Remus smoothed out the wrinkles in his patched, threadbare robe, brow furrowing just slightly.

"Oh?" Sirius caught him suddenly around the waist, pulling that smaller form up against his own. Remus's breath caught in his throat in a gasp, then exhaled long and deep in a satisfied sigh. "Yeah, so what, then?"

"Hm," Remus said, eyes flashing, and then he grew that soft, serious look once more, "I looked forward to seeing you." Sirius turned him around swiftly and kissed him, after the moment of abashed silence had passed.

"Why," he asked softly against RemusÕs lips," do you always know just what to say?"

"Because you always know what to do," Remus replied evenly, "and there has to be some sort of balance of talent." Sirius kissed him again, cupping his cheek studiously, fingers brushing over his chin. He was looking at, studying, Remus's face with his hands.

"Yeah," Sirius sighed, his thumb moving over the corner of Remus's mouth, "see what I mean?"

"I suppose." They kissed again. The train barreled down the tracks in the sunshine, light pouring in through the open and shameless window. Outside the world was as proud and warm as Sirius's heart, each end of summer bird, intent upon staying in the North for as long as they could, were on the same sort of arctic precipice as Remus himself was, risking it all for that which he could call his home. A nest. The late summer heat drowsy and lazy. Fat approaching, them approaching fate, but they thought of nothing about the snow or the cold or the coming of winter. Neither did they think of the shadow that lurked, frigid and jagged, behind the splay of the sinking sun.

Things lay in wait, but they were young yet, had all the world to hold, had no need for the dark corners which housed equally dark things.

The sunlight caught in Lucius's hair and the color of that precious gold was mulptiplied, made almost holy and inhuman in its near impossible illumination. The sun was setting low over the horizon; they never arrived at Hogwarts before the moon rose and night fell.

Severus watched him from the corners of shadowed eyes. When they had touched it had been oddly cold, and the shivers that ran down the dark haired boy's spine were chilling ones, strangely pleasant. While Lucius was, as always, far from tentative when he was taking something he wanted, Severus was hesitant to be kissed, to be touched, and far more nervous when it came to kissing and touching in return. But Lucius wanted it, had made it explicitly clear that for the first time in both their lives it was Severus that Lucius was after, putting his energies towards, setting his sight on. Knowing this was warmer than the cold touches and the cold feeling in his chest combined, a heat great enough to assuage the chill tenfold. Severus was proud, and Lucius had what he wanted.

In their own ways, for the time being, they were happy enough, Lucius taking and Severus giving.

"After all," Lucius had said at one point against the pale, warm skin of Severus's neck, blond hair tickling Severus's cheek, "everyone needs someone loyal to them, and them only. Professor Voldemort knew that."

Severus hated it when he mentioned that name.

"Do we have to talk about him?" Severus sighed, more of a plea than a request. It was pointless, he knew. They always did. Lucius lifted a slim brow high in his pale forehead, looking sideways at the other boy in arch amusement.

"Why not?"

_Because it had been feeling so comfortable,_ Severus thought wearily, _because it had been so nice for a while._

"It doesn't matter."

_Severus,_ Lucius thought, almost regretfully, _you are such a fool sometimes. Such a fool about everything you don't understand._

"No. You meant something by it. What?"

_I wish I could trust you completely,_ Severus thought,_ feeling his heart tighten in want, I want to trust you like I trust..._

Remus Lupin, unbidden, half-smiling, in his mind.

"It's nothing. ...really, nothing."

_He's not of the same caliber as I am, _Lucius thought, and to himself it seemed as if he were mourning this fact,_ he is not strong enough for the future. He's just not a visionary. Just not the right type. A disappointment, really._

"Now you're distracted."

Severus hated Voldemort. But he loved the idea of Lucius Malfoy, and Lucius Malfoy loved the idea of Voldemort. 

Most of all, Severus loved the idea of being truly desired by someone. Truly wanted. His parents had never shown that want, and this, to his teenage hormones and teenage pride, was something wonderfully new as well as something wonderfully Lucius.

"Sorry."

Lucius refused to grow sad over the eventual loss of this friend, this one person so loyal to only him. It was his interpretation of Voldemort's teachings: never to let emotion get in the way of your progress. It was foolish, but at least it was a theory for living his life.

"Just pay more attention to what's important."

It was hard to pay attention to anything at all, the world slipping through Severus's grasp, pulling away the harder he tried to hold onto it. Lucius marred his sense of reality.

"Right. All right. Sorry, Lucius."

And there were little feather light touches from those delicate hands, hands that were capable of so much the fine bone structure did not convey. Hands that would one day be powerful, both Severus and Lucius knew. Powerful, deadly, and still as slim and graceful as they always were. It was enough to send fresh shivers down Severus's spine.

"I like it," Lucius murmured against his neck, "when you say my name, and I'm kissing you." He was possessive, like that.

He leaned forward and their lips met, Lucius's tasting of marble, as if Severus were kissing a most beautiful statue, intangible and inhuman as a dream. 

"Lucius," Severus complied, into the place where their lips met.

It was the power the blond boy wanted, but there was none of the loyalty in the very seeding place of Severus's chest, longing for something or someone that he knew Lucius could not and could never be.

"Now that's how it's supposed to be," Lilly said at the end of the long day, stretching her arms above her head and neatly biting back a yawn. She seemed imperturbably satisfied with herself and with the world. James folded his arms over his chest and tried to look incensed rather than sulky. Lilly caufht, finally, the anger that radiated from him in the form of a pout. "...what's wrong?"

"Nothing," James huffed, and Lilly knew from his tone of voice that it was as far from nothing as it could possibly be.

"What's wrong?" she tried again. After more than five years of knowing the boy, she had learned to be patient. For all that James Potter was a gifted student and a brilliant young man, he had little to no emotional patience.

"It's just -- well, I mean -- don't get me _wrong_," James began, feelings all tied up into knots, tongue feeling much the same, "butt -- I'm happy for them, of course, Remus and Sirius, and all -- but -- _but_..."

"James Potter," Lilly said, cutting him off suddenly with a light of comprehension sparking to her eyes, "you're jealous, aren't you!"

"No," James began, but he wasn't allowed to get very far beyond that.

"You _are_," Lilly exclaimed, "I should think you've gone completely soft in the head! One too many falls from the Nimbus," she went on, shaking her head, "and even the best of them are rendered useless."

"I resent that," James muttered under his breath, and Lilly found it in her heart to soften.

"Look," she murmured with a deep sigh, "they're _happy_!"

"Yeah," James said, "I know, but they're happy without me! Sirius has been my best friend since we were four bloody years old, but now he has Remus, what does he even need me for?" He clenched his hands into fists, face flushed and grim. Already, Lilly mused, he had resigned himself to his fate, one which he assumed had no Sirius at all in it. It was sweet and endearing, in a slightly amusing way. "Don't know why I'm even talking about it," James continued, "that's just the way it is."

"James."

"And I'll miss him, you know. He's been like my brother all these years, but people change, I guess, you can't blame them for it."

"James."

"Isn't _his_ fault he won't need me. And he'll be happy, too, so I'm glad for him. Glad he's got--"

"Oh, James, do shut up for a minute and think, will you?" James blinked and before he could get angry Lilly kept on talking, hoping against hope she would get through his thick skull. "It's Sirius. When you and I were, ehm, as you know, did _you_ stop being _his_ best friend?"

"Well." James blinked again. " Well, no."

"so if you didn't do that to him, would he to you?"

"Oh," James said, and he blushed, cheeks suffused with color, "I see, uhm, what you mean." Lilly sighed, though she was smiling.

"Well you're not all that dumb," she said, and kissed the corner of his mouth quickly, on impulse, "just a bit daft, on the occasion." James frowned, but his blue eyes were sparkling with the hidden shadows of a smile. 

"Going to insult me and kiss me right after, then?"

"A kiss for every insult," Lilly promised, grinning.

"Insult away," James replied, "by all means."

And they laughed and kissed like whispers on into the night, the first day back to Hogwarts in their first year passing into the second, the second into the end of the first week, the first week into the second. Time flew by when you were young and you counted no days. Time flew by when you had all your youth to lose and you hurtled towards old age with foolish laughter and sightless eyes.

The sun winked through the pale cotton window curtains, slanting over the cover before him, splayed over his bandaged palms and wrists. His head ached, a pounding thrum behind his eyes and temples. In his lap his fingers curled as he tested himself. The muscles in his forearm screamed in protest. Al his body was a state of constant reminder, the ache of now reminding him unendingly of the torture from the night before. He hissed softly, lips pressed together, air easing from his nose slowly and painfully. This was as it was every morning after the full moon, the previous night's cuts and bruises making themselves known one by one all over his numbed body. On mornings like these he felt nothing other than impossibly gray, washed and bleached and colorless as the sun dappled his bedside, unable to soothe his heart or relieve him of any of his pain.

It was mornings such as these that made him dread and despise opening his eyes and allowing sleep to slip away from his trembling fingers.

And there was the oddest of familiar scents coming to him, one he knew so well, though for a moment his mind could not place it, scrabbling along a slippery plane of unfamiliar confusion.

"Remus," Sirius said softly from beside him, on one of the infirmary chairs. Remus could feel it in the air as the other boy leaned forward, closer to him. Sirius was looking, actively storing every bandage and every old scar revealed in his memory. Something tight with sharp claws clutched suddenly and agonizingly at Remus's heart in his chest. His eyes flew open to the bright light of day."

"Sirius?" Of course, his throat was dry and his voice was rough, run ragged with his howls the night before. "Sirius, what are you--"

"Doing here?" By his thighs Sirius's fists clenched, the fighting anger so easily aroused, so that spots of bright passion burst at the backs of his eyes. "This is the third time this year already, Remus! How can you possibly ask me what I'm doing here?"

"Sirius," Remus began feebly, by Sirius cut him off immediately.

"I'm worried!" he cried out, standing, shoving his chair vehemently aside, "I don't know what you think I should be but you lie to me, every month, and you disappear all night and wind up like this every morning, all torn up, in the damn infirmary! And I'm not supposed to be here? I'm not supposed to even be worried?" Remus lifted his shaking hands to his ears, trying to block out the headache, the heartache, the sudden surge of November terror that had settled cold over him now. "Don't do that! Don't stop listening to me, Remus, you can't shut me out like this because I won't let you!"

"Please," Remus whispered, begged, "please, stop, you don't understand. Please, Sirius --"

"I don't understand because you're lying to me!" Sirius interrupted once more, his voice lower now, but just as enraged as it had been before, just as wounded and therefore just as accusatory. "I don't understand because you don't let me! You don't want me to!"

"Please," Remus repeated, "Sirius, stop."

"I won't! It's not going to work, Remus, I'm not stopping, there's something wrong and I'm not letting you be hurt like this, no matter what you say to me!" Sirius stood by the window, leaning against the window-sill as his body radiated helpless rage. "Why?" And suddenly the anger was gone. "Why are you lying to me?"

"I told you," Remus whispered, face gray beneath the palor, "you don't understand."

"So help me," Sirius pleaded, moving to the foot of Remus's bed quickly, "so tell me. Let me understand. I can't understand if you won't help me to." And beneath that, the lingering request which Remus could not, could never, grant: _please help me_.

"I can't."

"Why not?" The anger surged up again and mixed with that lonely misery in Sirius's voice.

"I can't," Remus said again. Sirius's eyes narrowed, and Remus saw in those blue depths, so warm so often, the glitter of frigid pain at this unexpected betrayal.

"That's bloody bull," Sirius snapped through clenched teeth, "but if that's what you want, then fine. Fine. I won't bother you, Remus Lupin. Iw on't bother you by worrying about -- about -- whatever _this_ is!"

"Sirius--"

"Yeah," Sirius said, already moving across the room, his voice clipped and icy cool, "save it for someone else." And when he left he slammed the door behind him with Remus alone and white in the middle of the clean white bed in the center of the long white room. And as that whiteness settled gray and dirty as cobwebs or dust over him, all along the backs of his eyes, draped between his ribs, Remus knew that it had to happen one day, soon or far away, and that this dryness behind his eyes was as strong and as weeping as any tears would have been under the circumstances, this terrible lack of salt water in a land so parched.

"Go to Dumbledore," Lilly said finally, Sirius pacing the floor before her, James watching thoughtfully from where he sat across the way. At those words, James's eyes widened and Sirius froze, and Lilly thought for a moment that for all their redeeming qualities they weren't ever worth their incorrigible foolishness. She rolled her eyes a little and sighed, holding on tight to her patience. One day, she'd lose it, and they wouldn't know what hit them. "After all," she explained, "if he doesn't know what's going on -- which I'm sure he does, he knows _everything_ -- then he should. And if he does, then he'll tell you, and you can stop pacing the bloody floor back and forth, because it's driving me mad!"

"She's right," James said, ignoring the common knowledge that Lilly Evans was always right and stating the obvious.

"Something's wrong," Sirius muttered softly for the fifth time that minute, hands clenching and unclenching into and from tight fists, "he's covered in scars. He's just fourteen, like you are me, and it's like he's been in a war or something. It's not right. There's a reason and I'm bloody well going to find out what it is!"

"So," Lilly said, watching Sirius's finger's and allowing herself to be touched by his devotion, despite how blind it was, "go to Dumbledore and ask him."

"He might not forgive you," James said softly and seriously. It was a tone he got only when the true caliber of his spirit shone through and Lilly thought maybe she could see what he would be as a man. Intelligent and kind and deeply sensitive. It made her feel terrifically weak-kneed, but she tried very hard not to let on, except for occasionally. Very rarely, in fact.

"...I know," Sirius whispered, head bowing for a moment as his fingernails dug deep into his palms. "Hey," he murmured after a moment, looking up, "Peter -- what do you think?" The sandy haired boy, sitting in a chair in the shadows, jumped a little in his seat with surprise at being included in the conversation. A weak grin tugged at Sirius's lips and he nodded to Peter's unspoken question: _yeah, you._

"Sometimes," Peter said, slowly and carefully, "people are hiding things for a reason. They want them to stay hidden."

"But what if hiding's hurting that person? Really hurting them? And if you...found out what it was they were hiding, then you could protect them from it? Or know, at least, that you tried...tried to protect them..." Sirius trailed off, searching Peter's gray eyes bathed in shadow from across the room. Peter's lips curved up in a tiny, knowing smile, and he ducked his sandy-haired head down, shrugging lightly. 

"You'll help him, or try to help him, no matter what I say," he pointed out, "so go to Dumbledore. Lilly's right. That's the best -- maybe the only -- way."

"Mm," James agreed, his moment of maturity lingering still, as these moments stayed longer and longer, as of late, "go to Dumbledore. Find out what's wrong. If Remus can forgive anyone, it's you. I don't like the idea of him being hurt and our not knowing why, or by whom. This -- well, it has to be done," he concluded.

"Dumbledore," Lilly repeated.

"Dumbledore," Sirius echoed, steeling himself, and a moment later he was out the door while he still had the resolve and the adrenaline to spur him on, and therefore the strength to demand answers of Albus Dumbledore, Hogwarts' headmaster. The other three sat in silence, until Lilly spoke into the stunned air.

"Well," she said, "I didn't mean _now_." And were the situation not so serious, James would have laughed and envied his best friend's courage all at once. Lilly let one hand fall to James's shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. "Sirius'll charge right in there and fix everything, no matter what gets in his way." James covered her hand in his own and smiled, very slightly as he watched the far wall.

"I know," he said, "the idiot."

From his position on the outside of the circle, skirting along the circumference the other four made, Peter watched, and learned jealousy not of some_one_ but of some_thing_: such as the secret looks that fluttered between James's and Lilly's eyes; the fierce devotion that Sirius had to Remus; the strength James and Sirius both had, as well as their passion and brightness for life, in life; the love that Lilly had in those soft touches reserved only for James. Peter did not recognize the feeling, but it was the seed of dangerous desire planted now within him, cultivated by his ignorance and his loneliness.

It would be their undoing.

Dumbledore was sitting calmly and patiently when the door burst open with a dramatic and perhaps unnecessary bang.

"Good afternoon, Sirius," Dumbledore said kindly, "I've been expecting you. Do have a seat."

"I will _not_," Sirius said, and secretly Dumbledore admired the passion and determination in the boy's eyes.

"Ah," Dumbledore said, leaning forward onto his elbows, "something too serious for sitting down?"

"What's wrong with him?" Sirius slammed both hands palm down on Dumbledore's desk, scaring the paperweight so much that it scurried for cover behind one of Dumbledore's arms. The headmaster kept a solemn face, not wanting to reprimand the boy, and certainly not wanting to laugh at him. 

"Sirius," Dumbledore began, "I believe it would be best if you did take a seat, and a few breaths to calm down, as well."

"Don't try to distract me," Sirius said, but he sat anyway, hands balled tightly into fists in his lap. The older man met the boy's eyes and some of the wisdom, cool and collected, was imparted in that gaze. Sirius took a breath.

"That's better," Dumbledore murmured, and now, behind his just beginning-to-gray beard, he was smiling. "Now. Go ahead. What is it you want to talk about?" As always, the man was all ears. Sirius, who had been expecting, even craving, contradiction, felt the blood pounding through his veins begin to slow.

"It's Remus," Sirius said.

"Ah," Dumbledore replied, as he had expected as much, sooner or later. Such confrontation from the high-spirited black boy was something he had been waiting for ever since he began to catch the way Sirius looked at Remus, worship and the tinge of sadness in his eyes.

"You know he's all -- got all these scars. All cut up, all the time." Sirius kept his eyes on his hands in his lap, dark clouds roiling in shadow over his features.

"Yes."

"And that isn't right. How many he's got. He's just a little older than I am, for bloo-- just a little older than I am," Sirius corrected himself, hands clenching tighter.

"I know."

"And I've seen all of them on his face, sometimes on his neck, too," Sirius went on, jaw tight, "and he tries to hide them all the time. Like he doesn't want people to see 'cause he doesn't want people to ask."  
  
"Yes."

"But when I saw them, the first time -- I just let it go. He wanted me to. But I can't anymore -- It's every month! Every month that he disappears and gives some stupid excuse and then he winds up in the infirmary with all these bandages and he won't_ tell_ me what's wrong"

"Sirius." Dumbledore was smiling sadly behind his beard.

"even when I ask, he won't tell me what's wrong! Like he doesn't trust me, or something, like he doesn't trust me to know what's going on!"

"That," Dumbledore said quickly, "isn't the case, I can tell you that much." Sirius's head snapped up, his eyes flashed darkly.

"What else can you tell me?" he asked, and his voice was low, more mature than Dumbledore had certainly ever heard it.

"I have made a promise," Dumbledore replied, "to both Remus and his father."

"I need to know what's happening to him!" Sirius cried, standing suddenly, the comfortable chair he was sitting in sliding back loudly on the polished floor. The paperweight, which had ventured out of hiding at last, went scrambling for cover beneath a stack of papers. Sirius didn't notice, and if he had, he wouldn't have cared. This was far too important to be distracted from. "He won't tell me and he's being hurt and if _you_ don't help me then I'll bloody find out on my own so the question _is_, do you trust me to protect him, or not?"

"It's not as simple as that, Sirius," Dumbledore murmured in his most patient and conciliatory tones, and he leaned forward once more over the desk, both to reach out to the boy, and to protect the poor, distressed paperweight. "Nothing's ever as simple as that. Perhaps you didn't stop to think that by keeping this secret from you, Remus is trying to keep you? As a friend. Trying keep all of you as friends." Sirius was silent, processing this, not wanting to accept it as sensible but unable to keep himself from doing so. "Perhaps, Sirius, he is quite afraid."

"I'll keep him from being afraid," Sirius muttered under his breath, "he doesn't ever have to be afraid of _me_."

"That's not what I'm saying," Dumbledore went on. "Not that he's afraid of you, but afraid of losing you. Afraid of giving you reason to hate him."

"I wouldn't!" Sirius exclaimed, but there was no anger behind those words, only an infinite despair. Dumbledore bowed his head to its great weight. "I would never," Sirius added, softer, "hate him. No matter what he did -- what he was doing."

"No matter what he was?" Dumbledore asked, looking up at the boy from beneath bushy eyebrows and motioning with a hand for him to sit once more.

"No matter what he was," Sirius replied stubbornly, and he sat.

"I believe you," Dumbledore said, "and though it is not my place to tell you such things, such private things, something tells me that to do so would not be untoward, and would, rather, be for the better, in the long run." Sirius sat up a little straighter, hope lacing his limbs.

"So you'll tell me?" he asked, hands grasping tight to the arms of his chair. Dumbledore nodded, though his brow was creased with lines of deep thought. 

"Yes," he mused aloud, "yes, I think I shall." It had been oddly easier than Sirius thought, and some part of him was unsure. "No matter what he was?" Dumbledore questioned again, and Sirius found that odd, though he allowed no doubt to pang at his chest. This was Remus, after all, and Remus no matter what. Whatever caused those scars and those nights away wouldn't, and couldn't, change that essential fact. What had hurt Sirius was merely that the other did not trust him, enough to tell him lies every month, keeping him at bay.

"No matter what," Sirius promised. 

"Next month," Dumbledore said, leaning back in his own armchair, the leather creaking comfortably, "next month, when Remus, as you say, 'disappears,' you must come to me, and I will show you where he goes those nights."

"A month?" Sirius frowned. "I have to wait another month to know?"

"Patience, Sirius Black," Dumbledore soothed, "patience. These are the terms -- you must see for yourself. All right?"

"Yeah," Sirius said, firming himself, "all right."

They kept their distance from each other. In classes, in the common room, in the halls, they did not speak, tried not to look, catching gazes only occasionally and pulling away in shamed or miserable silence, fixing their eyes to the floor, their feet. It was more uncomfortable than the end of the previous year had been, and after the first few months of their fourth year having been so, so wonderful, this was like torture. To be separated, to be alone. To have known what it was to be whole and now to be only a piece again, quiet and lonely, with no warmth to share the space and the air around you. Remus felt in him only the grayness of loss, the spider growing fat within him, weaving its webs and letting his insides turn to sand and dust. Sirius paced the Gryffindor Common wanting to punch something and picked more fights with Lucius Malfoy in the span of that month than he had in the years that had passed ever since they met. He needed something to do with his energy, his impatience.

Remus, therefore, needed to make no excuses for the day of the full moon. 

But Sirius was watching, and waiting, and when Remus was in class for the first half of the day but gone for the second, the agitation that was boiling within him faded away. He couldn't concentrate.

Night fell.

Dumbledore, in his office, was waiting for him.

"You're sure?" Dumbledore asked, gravely, from behind the winking of his spectacles as they caught the weak light.

"I'm sure," Sirius replied, snorting softly. Of course he was sure. He'd been sure ever since he saw the boy, and maybe he hadn't known it then but he knew it now. He wasn't sure about what it was he was sure of, but he was sure he was sure of it.

Albus Dumbledore took up his wand and in the torchlight they made their way through the halls, down and up twisting staircases, until they had gone out a door and stepped into a world of bright moonlight. In the sky, the moon was a full and perfect orb, unshaded by the protection of the clouds. It looked oddly naked, so pale against the blue-black darkness, and Sirius tried not to keep his eyes on it as he had tried not to look at Remus for the past four weeks. It was hard. It was there and beautiful but its mysteries were too great. Around his neck, the miniature vial of moonshine glowed softly, comfortingly, and Sirius found that he was fingering it, the warmth it radiated soothing his fingertips. He smiled.

Remus had given this to him. It was one of his most prized treasures.

They crossed the grass, which seemed to be a dark gray-blue when there was no sunshine to make it bright, and the air was quite chill. Sirius refused to let himself be nervous, and let in only excitement. He would know, soon. He would know and then everything would be all right - no more scars on Remus's soft skin, no more haunted look in Remus's doe eyes. Dumbledore, beside him, was grim, fighting some inner battle that Sirius felt he need not pay any attention to.

Dumbledore didn't know him.

Dumbledore didn't know the power of these childish emotions.

And then they were in front of the Whomping Willow. Sirius blinked up at Dumbledore but the man was not paying attention to him. After tapping a knot at the base of the tree with a long, twisted stick, the headmaster beckoned towards a hollow hidden in the roots. The tree branches, which had clawed and grasped out to hurt, to wound, to protect, had frozen, still in the chill of night. Sirius was brave. He had to remind himself of this as he made his way through the motionless branches, curved and bent in what appeared to be the most agony a tree could feel. He hunched himself down and pushed himself through, smelling the dirt and sensing the sentience in the roots and hearing hoot owls in the trees far off, knowing that Dumbledore was right behind him.

It was a long, dark tunnel, dirt moist and crumbling all around him, getting beneath his fingernails, in his hair. He closed his eyes to the panic that surged for a moment inside his chest, warning him of what might lie ahead, what could lie ahead when you were in utter darkness and there was no light to counterbalance shadow. There was no need to be afraid, he told himself, for Dumbledore was at his back, and the headmaster would not have led him to an unsafe place. And he knew, too, that Remus was somewhere at the end of this tunnel. This knowledge propelled him forward, allowing him to plunge blindly ahead even as the darkness ran ever on and on, swallowing him up, dirt muffling all sounds, except of his deep breathing. It was, Sirius realized suddenly, just as running towards Remus was -- moving forward but unable to see, knowing something was coming but never being quite able to see what that something was. 

The earth had a wise musk to it, and Sirius recognized it as part of the scent he had grown to love when kissing Remus on the side of his neck, nose buried in his hair, lips brushing over the length of a scar that spoke tales of old wounds and old aches which Sirius himself could not understand.

He took power in the smell, and then he broke out into a spot of light, feeling wood beneath his hands and knees. After he had crawled forward Dumbledore burst out of the tunnel from behind him, shaking himself clean.

"Ah," he murmured softly, "here we are," and pressed a finger to his lips. Sirius nodded gravely. For a long time, he had been quiet. To speak would be to break the spell, which spread like a fairytale, or even a spider's web, between his fingers. Magic was a beautiful thing, and in this place it laced the air. 

Dumbledore pointed to the stairs and as they began to climb them, creak after creak, however Sirius tried to keep silent, he was aware of a tension in the air, then a snarling, then an ache, then a growling, and then a silence that meant something was listening to his ascent with perked ears cocked back. There was no way to ask what. He was immersed still in darkness, and had only to wait a little longer for Remus to appear, the speck of light before him. 

Dumbledore caught the back of his robes and he fell still.

Before Sirius was a window, without panes, just at eye level. Through it he could make out a room, bathed in darkness alleviated only by the full moon's light. There was a wire bedframe with a mattress torn to shreds on top of it, and a chair in gouged pieces scattered over the floor. The room was a mess, as if a great, savage mouth had ripped it apart, biting into wood and down alike in a frenzy of rage and feral despair.

In the corner, amidst old bedding and wood splinters, a wolf paced in shadow, fur a familiar and rusty color. There was blood on its teeth, catching the moonlight crimson and staining the fur around its muzzle. There was a proud, angry line to the beast's shoulders. All over, it was bleeding, wounds inflicted from its own claws, its own teeth. Sirius realized it was trapped. And then it dawned, slow and unbelievable, upon him. What -- who -- this was. Too, too familiar.

"I told Madam Pomfrey to come a little late, tomorrow morning," Dumbledore whispered, bearded, into Sirius's ear, "you have only to wait the night."

They stood there like that as the hours passed, in respectful, almost holy silence. Sirius's eyes fixed on the wolf as it paced the room and tore itself to shreds and could not look away. With Remus's own eyes, the wolf was angry. With Remus's own eyes, the wolf accused, snarled, bit, tore and hated. With Remus's eyes, the wolf was a prisoner. The pains, breathless, in Sirius's chest were unknown and unprecedented. He waited, but they did not fade.

When true dawn broke the terrible night and the full moon's power was displaced as mere echoes into the fading darkness, Sirius saw him change back, creature he never knew turning once more into the boy he adored, each cruel claw becoming simply fingertips with the sunlight as the air crackled in snags and surges of pain. Throughout the time of this changing Sirius was motionless, frozen and helpless to protect as the willow had been. He was pointedly aware of all his failures, all the times he had not fought to end such agony. It kept his feet rooted firmly in the ground. But when Remus crumpled at last to the ground, naked body as shredded as the room, blood on his lips and his fingers, long, jagged cuts like chasms in his flesh, Sirius burst forward, pulling away from Dumbledore as the man opened his mouth to protest, and then fell silent.

Sirius dropped to his knees at Remus's side, hands trembling but hanging limply by his sides. It was in this moment a hero, any hero who knew what he was doing, would reach out and take the fallen form into his arms, but Sirius found he was afraid. If he moved Remus too much, he might hurt him further. If he brushed against any of those bleeding gashes, the prostrate boy's pain would also be increased. Sirius couldn't bear to touch him because he was afraid of jostling his wounds. He remained that way for a minute of incompetent indecision, and then forced himself to move. 

"Oh," he whispered, hands moving first to smooth out Remus's hair from his forehead, then to dab the blood away from his lips, then to lift him lightly, gently, from the hard floor, taking him against his own body, "oh. Remus. Oh." He was shaking, he realized, and he took a deep breath to still himself so that Remus wouldn't be able to feel it. The other boy's eyes were closed, his lips parted and stained blood red.

_And you wanted to know, after all_, Sirius thought to himself. There was a weight lifted from his heart and another put there in its stead. _This is what he is and there's nothing you can do about it._ It wasn't that he was afraid for himself, for even if Remus did hurt him, it was Remus, and he would allow it. It was that he was afraid for the thin, limp form in his arms. It wasn't that he minded -- he was amazed to know, but he didn't mind -- for it was Remus, just as Remus always was. It was that this road his friend traveled was like none other he had ever been told about. He had no experience. In its face he was small, trying to stare down a beast of routine and darkness, a dark creature, while at the same time he was young, just a boy, just a helpless child leaning over Remus's pale, bloodied body.

Remus's eyelids fluttered. Pain crossed his face. Sirius watched the dark shadow of his own form over Remus's countenance and could not close his eyes. This had been his promise to himself, to face whatever it was with no fear and no accusation. To be strong, for Remus. And now, when his courage was supposed to be kicking in, he felt only tired and drained of any bravery he had once had.

He felt alone, and afraid. Now that he knew, would Remus push him away? How could he ever hope to help, or even to understand?

"...no," Remus whispered, his throat dry, "Sirius, _no_..."

"You're hurt," Sirius found himself saying, his voice steadier than perhaps it should be, and for a moment he had the distinct impression that he was a ventriloquist, throwing his voice to another, half-unrecognizable body that was stiff, and could not move, but could speak calmly all the same, "don't talk. Just -- quiet -- for now, Madam Pomfrey will..." His voice broke.

"Who told you?" There was a note of fear quavering in Remus's rough, low voice. "How did you...?" He did not feel as he expected. His heart beat faster but he had resigned himself a month ago to losing Sirius. Now, he was faced with it. 

Soon, it would be over.

Soon, he would be alone again.

And what more in the world was there?

"Dumbledore," Sirius heard himself reply, "I went to Dumbledore, and he showed me this place. Took me here tonight. I didn't know. Forgive me, Remus. Please. I'm sorry. Please."

"Why did he?" Remus hurt, all over his body. He was small but per inch of him was more pain than the biggest of men could endure. He, too, could not move, but it was because ever muscle inside him was weeping. He wanted to push Sirius off and away. He wanted to grab Sirius close and never let him leave. Inside him the wolf howled that he was alone, that he was tired, that he should sleep. He clung to consciousness with desperate and inhuman strength, but that only made sense. He wasn't human. Once, he had been, but now, he was just a beast, a beast who felt enough to feel loneliness through, beneath, the pain.

"I wanted to protect you," Sirius mumbled, head bowed, hair covering his eyes, "I wanted to protect you. I want to protect. I can't. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, please."

"Why?" Sirius didn't know what Remus was asking. Sirius didn't know how to answer. Remus repeated himself. "Why?" he asked again.

"Don't ask me stupid questions," Sirius said, smelling Remus smell of blood, "when you're hurt." He felt wetness on his cheek. Blood, too. It stank of pain, reeked of it. 

"...you haven't left, yet." Beneath the weariness in Remus's tone there was an incredulous tremble. Wondering. Hoping, perhaps, in that place which had sunk its teeth and claws into one dream and refused to let go of it. A place that would, he assumed, always let him down.

"'Course not," Sirius said. His voice sounded funny, even to him.

"Why?"

"Don't ask me that."

"Don't you understand?" Silence. "Don't you _understand_?" Silence again. "This is who I am," Remus whispered, his voice sounding not dry but so, so thirsty, "this is what I am."

"You're Remus," Sirius replied, "Remus Lupin."

"And it can't be changed," Remus went on, an internal speech he knew by heart, reciting it to himself silently every night before he went to bed, "I'm not like anyone."

"Never said you were," Sirius replied, his voice still funny.

"It's not the same," Remus murmured, eyes closed, redness playing over the backs of their lids, "it's not the same as that."

"It's who you are," Sirius replied, "Remus."

"You can't protect me from myself," Remus said finally. For all that his voice conveyed nothing it was a barren plane of desolation.

"I can do whatever the hell I want," Sirius replied. Almost as a sulky child would, but not quite. 

"You're an idiot." Remus opened his eyes again and found that the world was not bright but shielded with comfortable shadow, shadow that smelled of Sirius above him, shading him, a bridge or a dome of peace stretched out and strong.

"Maybe."

"Don't you understand!?" Remus's voice cracked. "This is -- people hate this -- kill this -- hunt this and destroy this and they don't -- they don't -- they're not friends with this! They don't lo-- they can't -- it's not normal, it's never normal, it's who I am! This -- _this_..." He broke off, his body shaking, his voice pregnant with dry sobs he would give no voice and no sound to. "I hate this," he whispered finally, "I hate it, I hate it, get away from me, you'll hate it to."

"I can't," Sirius said. He would have tightened his grasp around the other boy but he was afraid, so afraid, of hurting him. "I can't leave."

"Yes," Remus begged, "it's easy, just leave me alone!"

"You don't understand," Sirius murmured, his breath against Remus's nose, cooling a streak of half-dried blood, tickling Remus's lashes. He paid no attention to the wrenching in his gut.

"I do! I do, get out, just..._please_...leave..."

"Why didn't you want me to know?" Sirius's voice was a whisper. "If you didn't want me to know because I'd leave you, then why are you telling me to leave now, when I'm still here? Why won't you let me -- why won't you let me stay when I want to? Why are you trying to chase me away?"

"Because you'll leave," Remus whimpered, and the tears spilled over, mixing with the blood, "you'll leave and leave me alone, so just leave _now_, before I hurt you, before I do something I can't help..."

"I don't care."

"Well I do!" Remus felt himself choking, felt his face grow hot. "I'll hurt you! Do you think I want to? This isn't something I can control -- it isn't something you can control -- it just_ is_. And it hurts people, it hurts things, it ruins everything, no matter how much you say you love it, it ruins it -- I won't be able to stop it -- and it will, it will..."

"I don't care."

"Don't say that! You _don't understand_! There's blood on you now, and it's my fault! It's my blood but what do I do if it's _yours_?!"

There was silence. Sirius tasted blood and salt on his lips. He could feel it, too, on his skin. His shoulders lifted and heaved and he felt tears move slowly down his cheeks, blazing hot, wet trails over his skin. Slow and sluggish, releasing nothing. He barely acknowledged them at all.

"I'm not leaving," Sirius said finally, "I'm not."

"You're an idiot," Remus said again, taking a breath in, shakily, ragged in his throat. He hadn't cried for years, too many to count. Hadn't cried since that night, long ago, with the woods and the trees and the blood.

"You said that already." Sirius was crying, too. Remus could taste his tears. "I agreed."

"Go away."

"No."

"Get out."

"No."

"But you know," Remus breathed, "you _know_." There was fear in his voice again, and it wasn't Sirius that he feared, but himself. There was hatred, disgust, anger and pain in there, too, all directed towards that thing, that beast which lurked within him and took over his body once a month, hungry for blood. Unsatisfied. Unsatisfied as he was but he couldn't admit it. Lonely as he was but he couldn't admit it. Strong as he was but he didn't know it.

"I always knew who you were," Sirius replied faintly, "always." His lips trembled as he pursed them, brushing at the blood and the tears along the curve of Remus's cheek equally, without pause. It tasted salty, like old copper rusting in the rain, upon his tongue.

"Why," Remus questioned, "_why_," and he made a sound of anguish deep in his throat, "_why_?" and it was a howl, deep and fierce and pleading.

"I'm not leaving you," Sirius said, "I promised myself I never would. I promised myself I'd protect you. Why won't you let me?"

"Why do you _want_ to?"

There was blood on both their lips when Sirius kissed him. It was a long kiss, deep, but there needed to be no searching and no questions in it, only promises. Only answers. The taste of copper and of secrets burrowed into their tongues, unnamed, iundetermined, undefined. It tasted like nothing before. It tasted like being too large for your body and too small for the world. It tasted like adulthood, sweet and salty all at once.

"Madam Pomfrey's coming," Sirius said, drawing back.

"Blood on your lips," Remus whimpered, but the tears had stopped, "I'm sorry."

"Didn't even notice," Sirius replied.

"My blood on your lips now," Remus went on, "but when it's your blood on mine--" 

"Won't let it happen," Sirius interrupted firmly, "won't. Stop talking. I'm not the idiot, you are, so shut up." Remus felt Sirius's forehead against his own and the pounding headache at his temples faded to a murmur behind his eyes. He took in an unsteady breath and let it out slowly. It was an effort to breathe now, but he was remembering how, taking all his instructions and guidelines from the puffs of tobacco-scented air that came from Sirius's mouth.

"Sirius," Remus whispered, very softly, and then he gave it up, going completely limp. 

"Don't want me to get out of here anymore?" Sirius asked.

"I just want to sleep," Remus answered, hands knotting in Sirius's dirt- and blood-stained robes, "that's all."

"Then go to sleep," Sirius said. He kissed Remus's forehead, cheekbones, cleaning blood away like a cat would groom a kitten, a cat would groom a mate. When the darkness came to Remus's weary, burning eyes he felt still those arms around him, those warm lips moist upon his forehead, and he went gently into sleep's embrace, his heart slowing and his nerves frayed but calm.

"I thought so," Dumbledore said, stepping forward into the room. Sirius had forgotten he was there.

"I love him," Sirius said, flat and calm. He had to say it to someone and he found he couldn't say it to Remus. He was, he had learned, so very far from brave.

"I know," Dumbledore said, and sat down crosslegged on the floor to wait for Madam Pomfrey's arrival.

When Remus woke it was late afternoon. He felt cleaned and comfortable despite the pain he knew was waiting to take control of him. As always after the full moon, his weary senses were hyperactive, and for the second time Remus scented Sirius on the air. Only this time, the scent was closer and more distinct. Remus shifted and felt a weight against his side, warm, comforting, almost familiar.

On his shoulder he felt the oddest little tickling sensation and he realized quite quickly it was Sirius hair trapped beneath his t-shirt, brushing over his skin. As he moved, slowly, head lifting with painstaking care, his eyes opened groggily and he could catch sight of Sirius curled up against him, by his side.

Sirius was breathing steadily, rhythmically. Remus ran his eyes over that tanned face and felt himself shiver down deep in his belly. The proud line of his aquiline nose. The way his eyelashes fluttered to the rhythm of his dreams. No other body fit against Remus's own like this. No other body made Remus feel as comfortable with himself as this. It was Sirius, and this was such a feeling he could grow used to, grow up with, grow old with.

Something that felt so right, Remus decided, was something he would fight to make last. It was terrifying, yes, that Sirius knew. That Sirius had discovered this, the deepest, most agonizing secret Remus had kept for so long. But he didn't care.

Sirius had _stayed_.

Even when Remus had told him directly to leave he hadn't. Above all else he trusted Sirius, and even if he lost the others -- for he knew Sirius kept no secrets from James, and James kept no secrets from Lilly, and Peter always managed to find something out once the others knew -- he would still have Sirius, would still always have Sirius. So there was nothing to fear, no reasons left to worry about anything else in the world. He had what he wanted, and what he wanted had become what he needed.

_There was nothing left to fear_.

As this final realization flooded Remus's body all pain was banished completely from his system. If Sirius hadn't been sleeping, Remus would have whooped softly in relief, but as it was, Remus didn't want to wake the bigger boy curled up against his side.

"It's nice," said the warmed, familiar voice of Dumbledore, who was sitting across the way from Remus's infirmary bed, by the window, "isn't it?" The headmaster was whispering, careful of Sirius and how tired he must have been, but Remus could hear him crystal clear.

"Yes," Remus whispered back, feeling a part of the world around him for the first time in his life. As if, at last, he really did belong, not just on the world, but in it, a part of the people moving and talking and laughing. The infirmary was quiet. Outside, life moved on, slow and sweet and singing.

"I'm sorry," Dumbledore murmured faintly, "but I felt I should tell."

"My other friends," Remus said after a moment, and then trailed off.

"And what if they don't understand?"

"I don't know." Remus lifted a shaky hand and rested it stably, calmly, on the top of Sirius's head, fingers weaving with his hair. Silky smooth, as always. "He understood." Dumbledore nodded, sunlight sinking, catching in his beard.

"They'll understand," Dumbledore murmured.

"I didn't think so before." Remus pet the hair beneath his palm lazily, threading his pale fingers through the dark strands. Sirius, too, had been cleaned up, so no blood stained his face or his hair. The white of the bandages on Remus's hands and wrists were a startling contrast to the dark blue-black of Sirius's hair. Remus sighed, and a smile tugged lopsidedly at his lips.

"I can tell you one thing: James Potter is one of the most promising students it has ever been my pleasure to teach," Dumbledore said thoughtfully, "and if he doesn't understand, then I can't point out a single person who would."

"Mm," Remus said, only half hearing the words.

"Are you going to tell him yourself?"

"I think -- I think Sirius will." Remus's hand fell still. "Or maybe -- maybe I might." Dumbledore watched Remus's hand begin to move again in slow, lazy movements, pattered, fingers curling just slightly. It seemed a strain for even such a simple movement as that, fingers tensing and then relaxing, wrist shifting ever so slightly with each caress. It was young love, Dumbledore mused, puppy love. He wondered, deep in the back of his mind, why he hadn't seen it there before, but perhaps he was just as blind as the next man, plowing on foolishly, never seeing what was right before his eyes. He, too, sighed, but it was something deep and old, reminiscent of laughter in days that had long since passed.

"You're very strong," Dumbledore said, "and very brave, and I wish there were more all the magic in the world could do for your happiness."

"It's who I am," Remus answered quietly.

"Yes," Dumbledore said, "yes."

"And I've come to be used to it, at least." Remus was smiling again, a smile that came at you out of nowhere and seemed as if maybe it were sadder than the jagged tooth of a mountain, or maybe as if it were happier than you yourself could ever be. He was a young boy and an old man all at once. Sometimes, Dumbledore allowed himself to wonder what, exactly, the world was coming to.

Something wonderful, he thought.

Something filled with children like this, who would fight against the darkness which was ever rising.

It was a boy like this who would grow into the sort of man strong enough and determined enough to defeat that which Dumbledore himself knew, somewhere deep down, that he could not. He envied this boy and was proud of him all at once, as if he were a parent, or a good friend.

"That's better than most," Dumbledore said after a long while had passed, "better than even those much older than you."

"It's not that I like it," Remus added impulsively, "or even that I can accept it."

"No," Dumbledore said slowly, "of course not." He looked the boy up and down, the tentative way he was lying, looking only half-comfortable, always waiting, always prepared. It was a wary strength. The best kind, perhaps. In those deep brown eyes was the spark of a treasure. He fought back against who he was in some places, and created himself that way. That was where his acceptance lay. The wolf inside of him was for now not a part of himself, someone, something, he circled warily, eyes bright and narrowed. He was just as strong, if not stronger for his rational thought, than the beast. Again, Dumbledore felt that strange envy, and that equally strange pride.

"It's just that," Remus said, and he ran his fingers gently through Sirius's hair, pushing back the bangs from his forehead, watching his eyelashes catch the fading light, "it is. And when things are -- there's nothing you can do about them."  
  
"Certainly not." Dumbledore smiled. 

"So you learn to live," Remus murmured, after a few seconds had passed, and as Dumbledore watched the setting sun Remus watched Sirius's face, and felt himself smile freely for the first time, not as a boy.  



	9. Chapter Eight: Les Racines

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**Chapter Eight: Les Racines  
What happens**: Remus tells Lilly, James and Peter and spends the winter at the Black residence, where Sirius learns of prejudice, even in his own family, and discovers the necessity of secrets. Yes, this summary is a dork.  
**Main Characters**: Remus J. Lupin, Sirius Black  
**Subsidiary Characters**: James Potter, Lilly Evans, Peter Pettigrew; Severus Snape, Lucius Malfoy; Professor Voldemort, Professor McGonagall; Etienne Ibert  
**Couples You Will Find In This Fic (Whether You Like It Or Not)**: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin; James Potter/Lilly Evans; Severus wanting Remus's body; a hint or two of Lucius Malfoy/Severus Snape; other relationships of both a homosexual and heterosexual nature  
**Dedication**: This fic is dedicated to **all my reviewers**, without whom I would be a miserable mess; now, I'm just a **cheerful** one with **big happy dorkfaces**. To '**Emmy the Cat**' -- you make me smile so much, whenever I read your reviews, that I can't help but dedicate this chapter to you, as well as to all the people who have **emailed** me, **reviewed** my work faithfully, sent me **pretty graphics** (yes, **Ana**, you know who **you** are) or even **cared** in the **slightest**. It's all for **you**, people. My **reviewers**. You **rock **my **socks**! Always.  
**This is**: **chapter eight** of a **work in progress**. Like all my **works in progress**, it is possible that you will be **waiting** a **very long time** between **installments**, or they could come out **daily** in a **psychotic** and rather **frightening** fashion. **Do Not Worry**! Just take it **as it comes**, and feel free to send me **demanding fan mail **(all **demanding fan mail** should be sent to **IremusJLupin@aol.com**) if you feel you've been waiting **an egregiously long time**. **Demanding fan mail** is **annoying** sometimes, but on the whole it makes me feel **incredibly cool**. And **that's what it's all about**, right? **Oh yes**. And I am also **constantly updating** **chapters** that have already been **uploaded**, whenever I find a **hideous spelling error** or a **problem with grammar**. So check back **often**.  
**C&C**: is **demanded**. Or, you know, **desperately longed for**, in a rather **pathetic **sense. Just gimme some of that **good ol' fashioned R&R**, and let me know you actually do want to **see more of my work**.  
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**Chapter VIII: Les Racines**

Telling the others about himself was different, to say the least, than telling them, with Sirius, about the two of them. The latter had been easy -- they had shown it, Lilly and James knowing them well enough to understand and even cultivate the bond that grew fast and strong between them, Peter seeing and comprehending much more than anyone ever gave him full credit for. The former was something different entirely, Sirius beside Remus but not a part of it. This was all his own, on his own shoulders, on his own back, forever.

James, sitting beside Lilly, said nothing. Peter watching Remus more than he watched his hands for once. Sirius stood adjacent to Remus, a foot away, arms crossed over his chest as he watched from beneath his bangs, admiring.

The words came out simply, smoothly, not too fast and not too hurried, slow and simple. It was, as Remus had said, that it merely was. He presented it as such, and the air was heavy, pregnant with silence, their unspoken questions, the struggle within them to try and grasp what it meant.

"So," James said softly, "that's why youevery month" Remus nodded, keeping his eyes focused on the wall behind his friends. His hands were steady but his heart pounded like a caged bird fluttering within his chest.

"Mm," he replied, thinking of little things, such as the cotton of his old robes, or the tree branches that waved in the breeze against the gray air just outside the window. There had been a bird nesting once upon them but she had flown South a month before. Small things such as that, keeping him otherwise occupied, so he wouldn't have to think about the eyes on him.

"I never even guessed," Lilly murmured, shaking her head, "never, not once." And, as Lilly knew most things always, to admit such a thing was important indeed. Still, Peter and Sirius were silent.

"I suppose," Remus said softly, ducking his head down, "that's just what I wanted." It seemed as if he were smiling sadly in the shadows his own form made, waiting for the harsh blow that would come at any second from an unknown direction. It was something for which he could not be entirely prepared.

"I've heard," James said, "I mean, I've read, that being -- you know -- is" He licked his lips, and kept his pale blue eyes on Remus, unsure. "I've read that it's hard," he continued finally, "and -- I mean -- that sounds bloody stupid, I sound like a bloody git, I can't possibly know, but -- I" Remus shrugged lightly. 

"I'm used to it," he said.

"And you never told us." Lilly frowned to herself, less angry and more thoughtful. "We never even _knew_."

"Sorry," Remus said.

"No," Lilly hurried on quickly, "no -- it's just -- _Remus_." At last, Remus was pulled away from what was going on outside the window, eyes catching Lilly Evans's own emerald ones. She had an intense gaze, pure and bejeweled, and Remus couldn't break away from it, found her searching him as she searched his eyes and he felt oddly out of place but allowed this deep intrusion.

"Yes?" Remus's throat was dry. For all that he had prepared and steeled himself for this moment, for losing the friends he had spent more than three school years with, for all that he had told himself he didn't mind it, so long as he had Sirius with him, he still felt something close up tight as he swallowed, and his palms were cold. 

"You could have trusted us," Lilly said at last, very softly. Her eyes were sad. "Really, we" She found herself looking away, found herself faced with something she could not stare down, or reason her way out of, or be strong against, or triumph over. There was, she thought, no success in a world that had such dilemmas in it. Such pain. Such creation. It was the first time she had come to discover this reality, and she shivered. James, eyes flickering casually over to her, slipped his hand into hers.

"I should have," Remus replied, smiling weakly, his face aged, "and I'm sorry. I lied to you. I lied to all of you."

"You never lied," James said, holding tight to Lilly's hand, "never _once_ did you lie."

"When I went away those nights," Remus sighed, "each time, I lied to you."

"That doesn't _count_," James protested, "everyone lies like that, at some point or another, and none of them have ever had as good a reason as you have. I'd like to say -- I'd like to say that I wish you'd trusted us more, that I wish you'd told us, but I -- I don't know what I would have done," he went on, "and I never will. So I suppose -- I trust you -- and know what you did, it was what was best." His brow was furrowed, his hand warm, as he worked his theory, his decision, out for himself. Remus lifted his head, slowly.

"But I," Remus began, and this time, Peter cut him off.

"You did, I think, what any of us would have," he said, slowly and deliberately, "and we can't blame you, not for who you are."

There was silence, in which it was easy to feel Sirius smile.

"See?" he asked at last.

"Exactly," James said. Lilly looked up at Remus's face, eyes wide, unsure but hopeful, aching with the wisdom of the earth. So that was why, she realized, he always looked so sad and so old. So that was why he was unlike any other boy she had ever or ever would know, holding himself proud yet ashamed, strong yet weary, wild yet broken. So that was how his eyes seemed to know everything, more even than Lilly herself did. So that was why he lurked within the crinkling confines of a good, long book.

And James's words made sense, thinking deeper than what was shown, thinking deep beneath the lines, as James sometimes had the wisdom to do. Inside she was still hurt, but not at all for her own feelings, hurting rather for Remus and the load on his shoulders, the silver in the gold that lurked within his eyes, wishing there were something she could do and knowing there never would be.

Lilly felt herself smile slowly, brightly, her eyes bright also, as was the radiant light that shown through her features. Sadness and warmth chased each other over her face.

"You can trust us," she said, "you can always trust us, Remus."

Remus knew then that they would tell no one, betray his secret to no one, and that this moment of lingering smiles was enough to carry him through the rest of his life on a wave of blissful acceptance. He shrugged faintly, feeling half embarrassed by each fresh burst of pride, and his muscles tightened ever so slightly. It was the first promise all five of them had ever shared and it would not be broken for many years to come, in a time and place much different from rare childhood.

Remus had never used a library for this purpose before. It was new. It was interesting. It was, Remus had to finally admit, very nice.

He was pressed up not uncomfortably against the prickling bindings lined up in the ancient muggle literature section, a place which no student other than Remus had ever found any reason to explore. Now, that heedless neglect of such brilliant classics had proven to be a gift to both Sirius and Remus in a search for some much needed privacy. All right, so the carpet was dusty, and the bookshelves smelled of age and disuse, and it was hard to ignore the tickling in their noses that sometimes heralded a sneeze they needed to fight back. But, all in all, it was a most opportune and convenient discovery. 

Even though the fraying book bindings were proving to be quite uncomfortable against Remus's back and neck. 

There were other things that were very much nicer, however, that Remus could concentrate on instead of that roughness on his skin. First of all, there was the very smooth, very soft way Sirius's lips were on his. Then, there was also the very gentle, very delicate fashion in which Sirius's hand was pressed against Remus's hip, warmth through the fraying robes. There was also the nice, close way their bodies were pressed, or how Sirius thought to slip an arm around Remus's waist and pull him close, or how sweet the world smelled all dusty and bookish and with Sirius's scent above all that.

No, Remus had never used a library for this purpose before, but he was certain that he'd like it very much to do so again. 

As Shakespeare was knocked out of the shelf, landing in a puffing dust cloud by Remus's thigh, Remus closed his eyes to this supposed abuse of literature and imagined himself in a world of words and poetry and beyond that, the warm feeling of Sirius's lips on his own. When they kissed, now, they kissed with more daring, lips parted, breath hot, little sounds of air catching in their throats raggedly, hungrily. When they kissed, now, Remus was half-mindless, no better, or perhaps no worse, than the beast inside him.

"Quelle...bonne idee..." he whispered against the side of Sirius's jaw. Sirius turned, quieting him in another kiss. A Midsummer Night's Dream toppled over on top of a collection of sonnets.

"Yeah," Sirius mumbled back into Remus's mouth, "yeah, whatever that meant -- sounded good, anyway..." Remus shivered as Sirius pressed himself closer in another cloud of dust, another cloud of old English. 

"J'aime...cette idee...je l'aime beaucoup..."

Sirius kissed him a little more fiercely, claiming those French lips with a low laugh and a soft growl. Remus lifted a hand up, grasping at the front of Sirius's robe. Their hips came in contact and again, it was like growing up, bone against bone, the realization that beneath that light cotton cloth was warm, flushed skin. Just thinking of that skin, just thinking of flushed skin against flushed skin, made that unknown thing clench up tight in Remus's stomach. Above him, Sirius was trembling, very slightly, shaking with the effort of keeping himself up as much as he was over Remus's body.

"When," and then Sirius's lips were on Remus's cheekbone, "you talk," and then by his temple, breath puffing against the light hairs above, "like that," and he was on his forehead, each kiss slow and deliberate and wonderful, there, "it sounds," and he was breathless with kissing down Remus's nose, "so," right above his upper lip, "beautiful." Remus threw back his head a little and caught Sirius's lips in his own. As they kissed again he laughed, a deep, wonderful laugh that got caught up in the junction of their mouths. Sirius felt his own gut clench and his body pressed forward, the muscles in his thighs clenching tight. 

"Mais," Remus whispered, as their kiss broke, and he looked up into those blue eyes, "quand nous embracons, je ne pense pas...je parle des mots, mais je ne les entends pas..."

"Whatever you're saying," Sirius said, burying his face in Remus's neck, "keep saying it." He worked over scars and unmarred flesh alike, using teeth and tongue and lips on pure instinct alone. His instinct was perfect. Kissing Remus came naturally to him, more naturally than anything else ever had. From the very beginning he had worked out a map of Remus's skin, each weak spot, each place that tasted particularly sweet. He knew the other's face by heart. It wasn't like memorizing formulas or dates or calculations, and there was much less margin for error in the sheer wonderful way they felt when they touched. Sirius threw himself to the task as if it were a game. Sort of, he would have explained, like Quidditch, only he was better at this than he was at the sport, and he'd grown much fonder of touching Remus and hearing Remus make these soft, young sounds than he was of falling off his broom and hitting the ground hard. In Remus's arms, in the privacy of just the two of them, there was no way Sirius could fail at anything.

He loved it as much as he loved Remus and could only show the vast range of these feelings when he was kissing, touching, letting his body speak for him as opposed to the clumsiness of his awkward, embarrassed words.

Remus felt the cover of something very poetic stab him in the shoulder-blade.

"Je ne dis rien," he murmured giddily, breathlessly, "mais, peut-etre, je dis tout?"

"One day," Sirius whispered, promised, "I'm gonna learn French, and be able to understand everything you're saying.

"Mais non," Remus replied, closing his eyes, "apres, il n'y aurait pas le mystere."

They kissed a little while longer and pulled down the collars of their robes, unbuttoning them with careful yet hasty fingers, so they could explore necks, collar bones, a bit of the flesh that lay beneath. And then, they went no further, Sirius relaxing against Remus's chest, curling up between his legs, half in his lap, his head tucked beneath Remus's chin. Remus snaked his arms around that bigger form, seeming oddly miniature as it was, now, coiled into a tiny, contently warm ball. Toying with his hair, Remus thought about their breath as it slowed, the deeper rhythm, the pure relaxation stored in their lungs. 

"Quelle bonne idee," Remus repeated, thinking aloud, "quelle belle idee."

"Remus?" Sirius's eyes were closed and he felt half-asleep, groggy and satisfied.

"Oui?"

"Come home with me."

"Quoi?" Sometimes, they needed no translations between languages, their voices, their tones of voice, enough to convey all it was they wanted to say. Sirius knew without needing to ask that he should clarify the request. The statement.

"You always stay in Hogwarts over Christmas Break -- come home with me."

"Mais," Remus said, "l'argent..." And Sirius knew also that Remus was protesting, for some reason or another, despite what he wanted. He would have frowned if he felt like moving even that much. As it was, he stiffened a little. 

"C'mon," he pleaded, "my family wants to meet you, and it'd only be for a week -- I want you to come. Please?" He nuzzled into Remus's neck, breath puffing out warmly. "Michael and Sean'll be in, and Mum and Da have heard so much about you, never having seen you -- everyone's starting to wonder if you're real."

"Je," Remus sighed, "je le voudrais..." His hand stilled against the soft silk of Sirius's hair, his body, his breaths, pausing in thought. "I'd like that," he said finally, "I'd like that very much."

"Yeah," Sirius said, relaxing again, that warmth and excitement moving like slow liquor through his veins, "and your dad could come, too, if he wanted. Mum suggested it in a letter and I thought -- you know, I just thought it'd be nice. To have a nice Christmas -- only my mum can beat Hogwarts cooking, you know."

"I'm sure," Remus replied with a slight smile. 

"So?" Sirius's voice was pleading again. "What do you think?"

"I can ask," Remus said. Hamlet was giving him a pain in the back, sharp and insistent, but Remus ignored it, "and that's all I can do, after all."

"I know," Sirius said, "but it's a start." The dust moved around them like laughter. Homework forgotten, they kissed again, and twined themselves together until it was impossible to tell where one boy ended and the other began, which arm or which leg belonged to whom. It was dark and dusky in that abandoned corner of the library and they stayed that way until late in the night, too awake to sleep, too asleep to move, too content to feel anything anywhere else echo or disturb the comfort of their air.

And so, when winter came, showering snow down upon the pale world and making it seem, for such whiteness, all the more vivid, Christmas became a green thing, sparkling with lights, promising presents beneath a tree and the one word Remus tried so often to ignore: family. 

He had written his father, asking at the end of a very long letter for the permission to spend the holiday vacation with Sirius's family. Etienne, who had, unbeknownst to his son, received a promotion just a week before he received the letter, wrote back immediately, telling him it was all right. Already, Remus knew his Christmas was complete, this being the first and most important present he could have gotten. At Sirius's urging he wrote back, inviting his father to come, as well. 

Because of the two boys' youthful eagerness and Etienne's accountant's efficiency, arrangements were made in less than a week. For the first time in Remus's life, Christmas Break had become something he looked forward to, something he allowed to distract him during homework and fill his mind with daydreams during classes. Sirius, too, couldn't wait, writing letters back and forth with his parents until all the plans were flawless and set in stone. Dumbledore watched these two with a keener eye than he did most, spending the occasional tea with Professor McGonagall or Professor Hemlock discussing their achievements or insights.

In this time Remus barely saw Severus Snape more than twice, and even then it was only in passing, exchanging careful smiles as they walked by each other in the hallways. As a result, the Slytherin boy spent more and more time at Lucius's side, growing closer as two rosebushes did, pricking each other with their own thorns.

The night before Remus and Sirius were to take two trains, first the Hogwarts express, and then another to where Orion and Aquila Black were to pick them, Sirius found he couldn't sleep. His mind ran over things in a wild frenzy: his parents would drive them back to Rhondda, where they'd meet with Etienne, and then Sirius could show Remus the treehouse he'd built a few years ago, the solitude of the old, abandoned mine, which he knew Remus would like, the stripped out, empty feeling it gave off, lonely unless you were with someone else. And then there would be presents, and Christmas, and firesides, and the full moon wouldn't be on anyone's mind. The best cure for anything, Sirius knew, was distraction. Well, for anything, except for sleep. Sirius's eyes refused so shut, his body refused to relax. 

He found himself wondering if Remus had drifted off yet, or if he, too, was as excited as Sirius himself was. Eventually, he decided that Remus was no doubt being the adult he always was, asleep already so he wouldn't be tired out the day of the trip. It made him smile and frown all at once. With a deep, long sigh, he stretched himself out over his bed.

And found he still couldn't sleep. 

_And then he'd show Remus how it looked when you looked down from the treehouse over the world below, and Remus would understand what it meant to be above things, taller than them, watching them seem all unreal beneath. And maybe Remus, in looking out over everything, through the thick foliage of the trees at the edge of the town, where mining and man met the forest, he would say something like, "Jolie," and it would mean something nicer than English words could tell, just 'cause Sirius knew by the way Remus was talking what it meant._

He slipped out of bed, feet on the cold floor, pushing past the thick, enveloping curtain around his bed. Beneath him the floorboards creaked softly in tired protest. He took a few steps forward, and then grew bolder, even though it was dark and quiet. Remus's bed was only a few steps away, in any case. 

"Remus?" He pushed the curtain to Remus's bed aside, voice lowered to a questioning whisper. "Remus. Are you awake?" Startled, Remus turned in the bed, hair falling in disarray over his eyes, which were wide, surprised. Sirius could tell immediately that he had not been sleeping; no doubt, he was indulging in whatever it was he thought about so long and so hard sometimes. 

"I suppose I am, now," Remus replied, sitting up slowly, running his fingers through his hair to keep it from his eyes, in a weak attempt at neatness, "what is it?" Sirius sat down on the edge of the bed and it groaned as the floorboards had. Everything, in the dead of night like this, was tired, protesting against those awake, clinging to slumber with groggy hands. 

"Couldn't sleep," Sirius murmured, flopping back against Remus's shins, looking up at him.

"No," Remus said wryly, "I can see that." Sirius had never come to him this way before, in the deep night, in the privacy of his own bed. Only once had they both sat on the same bed, that one evening of the Butterfly Summer, but that had been different, was different, than this. "What are you doing here?" Sirius said nothing and merely shrugged. "I could have been asleep, you know."

"But you weren't," Sirius informed him, "so it doesn't matter." He looked so cocky, so sure of himself, that Remus couldn't help but smile, and the grin on Sirius's face widened. "C'mon," he said after a moment, "aren't you just a little bit excited?"

"Of course I am. It doesn't mean I have to show it. It doesn't mean I'll keep myself from getting some sleep."

"Always so _practical_," Sirius complained, though he put no heart and no energy in it, "why do you have to be so _practical_ all of the time?"

"Because it helps." Remus's voice was dry.

"Anyway," Sirius went on, shrugging as best as he could in such a position, "I was bored, so I thought I might drop by for a bit of a visit, Monsieur Moony." Remus blinked, and felt a laugh rise rusty in his throat. He pushed it down for the moment, lifting a skeptical brow.

"Calling on me unannounced, Monsieur?" Sirius did laugh at that, wondering when they'd both turned into Cassie and her best friend Andrea. 

"I hope it hasn't been too much of an inconvenience to your busy schedule," Sirius said, when he was finished laughing, lips pursing faintly, a repressed grin dancing over them. Remus ran his fingers again self consciously through his hair, which was in need of a cut, for it was always nice, the more you could see of Remus's face.

"I'm sure I can squeeze you in, somewhere," Remus said. After that, they were silent, until they began to laugh, both of them now, Sirius deep and free and Remus breathy and wounded, speaking of such laughter that only came after great pain. Sirius reached up to Remus's face lazily, fingers brushing over his cheek very lightly. 

"Even when you are being practical," Sirius said, but he didn't finish the sentence, his eyes bright and dark at the same time, seen through the shadow, the lack of light. The conclusion to those spoken words was left floating in the air, and Remus closed his eyes, letting it bathe over him slowly. Sirius knew, then, that things were so much better, compliments so much greater, when they were left to the imagination. Anything could have come after that. You're beautiful. You're mine. You're amazing. You're everything. 

"Even when you are being a child," Remus replied, and he didn't finish his sentence, either. They met each other's eyes in the darkness, some light glinting between them, not external but lit from within. Sirius ran his thumb thoughtfully over the curve of Remus's cheek, slow, gentle. Remus leaned lightly into the touch, sighing softly, deeply, as all the heaviness he bore with him took off from the center of his chest, the pit of his stomach, the very tips of his fingers. Both of them closed their eyes on an unspoken, sudden cue, and Remus dipped his head down, then lifted it up, rubbing back against Sirius's palm. It was soft. He could tell it was brown. Even in the darkness, he knew the colors that were not by his sensibilities but by his senses. The wolf, he had given free reign over himself, over his eyes, his ears, his nose. His lips. He turned his face to the side, very slowly, and pressed those lips against the very soft flesh beneath Sirius's fingers. They curled against his nose, against the sides of his nose. 

They shivered, though it was very warm.

"I'm not a child," Sirius mumbled in feeble protest.

"Yes, you are."

"You are, too. Just a boy. Moony." His thumb trailed over Remus's lower lip first, then the upper. There were the slightest of broomstick-caused calluses on his fingertips. Even so, they were soft.

"Not quite," Remus whispered as a knuckle brushed over the corner of his mouth. 

"No," Sirius said, "not quite." He took Remus's jaw in that hand, cupping his cheek in an upside-down fashion, bringing his face down to kiss his lips and then stopping suddenly, pausing, letting their noses and breaths brush together but not closing that last distance, a few centimeters at most, between them. They waited. Remus felt thrill after thrill run down the very center of his spine, burying themselves into the depth of his stomach. 

Still, they waited. 

It grew cold, fingers of snow ghosting over their skin, causing the pale hairs there to stand on end in the cool night.

"Kiss me, Moony?" Sirius asked at last. Remus could feel the words on his own lips. Remus could almost taste them. Remus closed his eyes and opened them again, and he leaned down, across the miniscule but important space between them. He found Sirius's lips, pressed his own to them, and then drew back with Sirius's lower lip between both his own. The kiss lingered that way, until Remus pulled slowly away.

"Comme ca...?"

"Again."

Remus obeyed.

"Une autre fois?"

"Like that."

Remus obeyed.

"Avec les yeux fermees."

"Open your eyes."

Remus obeyed. This kiss was deeper. He searched Sirius's mouth as if it held not just his own secrets but the secrets of the world, ones which he had been searching for the answers to for all his life. He dropped a lazy, graceful hand and rested it against Sirius's cheek as Sirius still pressed his palm against his own. They opened their eyes together. Closed them together. It was dark and they could see nothing whether their eyes were open or closed. Nighttime blanketed them and Sirius shifting against Remus's legs to accommodate the depth of their kiss and the grace of their touches. Sirius felt Remus's golden lashes fluttering against the bridge of his nose. Remus bent himself over Sirius's chest, kissing, movements slowed.

It was the first time, Sirius realized, that Remus had truly kissed him. Some strength, some courage, that Sirius had never before seen was conveyed through this kiss. Some firmness of spirit. Some presence of mind. Some deep desire and it made, Sirius discovered, a world of difference.

Sirius Black had never before in his life been kissed this way. It made his head pound and his stomach twist up in knots, and he wasn't sure, with the shadow above, whether or not he had his eyes open, until he saw his own reflection in the gold of Remus's eyes, and moved into his arms, body light as a feather, heart sounding like the sea. 

Aquila Black thought she had never seen a boy so small or so pale before in all her life. Used to her own boys -- loud, tan and more than just rowdy -- her eyes were unused to the sight of one so petite and so unsure of himself as this Remus Lupin Sirius was always going on and on about. On first instinct, she wanted to take the poor, starved looking child under her wing and feed him with meat pies and sunshine until he grew as strong and hearty as Sean or Michael, but she didn't think Sirius would much appreciate such efforts. 

And then, Aquila saw the look in the small boy's golden eyes, and felt her heart comforted. When one had eyes as sharp and as determined as that boy did, they'd be all right, Aquila knew, in this world.

Still, as Aquila watched, she saw that Remus stuck close to Sirius's side, half behind him, holding tight to a hand-me-down suitcase as if it were a lifejacket and he were shipwrecked in a vast ocean. Sirius, Aquila realized suddenly, was using himself as a human shield to protect the other boy, leading him through the crowd and making sure no one bumped into him. She lifted a brow and watched in half-bemused pride until her son caught sight of her and the mood broke. His face broke out in the brightest of smiles and his back straightened, and then he'd grabbed Remus's arm and was racing across the small distance between the two of them and the gathering of his family, waiting for his arrival for the holidays.

"There he is!" Michael cried out, and Sirius dropped Remus's arm as he and his older brother catapulted towards each other like two over-zealous puppies. "Gotta love him, late as always!"

"Aw, come off it, Michael, 'fore I knock you off!" Remus shrunk back as the two boys laughed, watching quietly, pensively. The taller boy Sirius had called Michael was darker, with a sharper angled face, but looked much as Sirius did. He ruffled Sirius's hair into disarray before pulling back, dark blue eyes sparkling.

"All right," he said, voice rich with laughter, "where is he, then?" Sirius stepped aside to reveal Remus behind him, running his fingers through his hair to straighten it out. His cheeks were flushed and it was rare that Remus ever saw anyone so vividly alive as this. 

"Remus," Sirius said, that same laughter in his own voice, "this is Michael. Michael, this is Remus." Remus felt those dark blue eyes run over him speculatively and he stood his ground, though he kept his own eyes lowered, as he had made his inspection of the older boy previously.

"Well," Michael said finally, after a few moments of silence had passed, and then he held out his hand, "after all this time, it's _very_ nice to meet you at last."

"It's nice to meet you, too," Remus replied, taking Michael's callused, rough hand in his own and feeling quite inadequate when faced with the older boy's intense, almost crushing handshake.

"All right, Michael," Sirius grumbled, smiling beneath a frown, "stop crushing his hand and let me introduce him to the rest." Michael ran his eyes one last time over Remus's face and then dropped his hand, stepping back. Despite himself, Remus felt oddly chilled by the look, as if Michael were seeing something he disliked extremely, and was trying to keep it hidden despite the sudden frown to his eyes. He couldn't face those eyes, and turned instead to what had to be the rest of the family, all the boys looking very much like Sirius, and the three girls almost exact miniatures of a tall, big-boned woman with the strongest eyes Remus had ever seen. "All right," Sirius went on suddenly, "pay close attention, 'cause there are a lot of them."

"Mm," Remus murmured, as if to tell Sirius to go on. He was taking this seriously, still shaken up by the look Michael had given him, abrupt and disapproving.

"Sean," Sirius began, "the oldest." Sean stepped forward, hands shoved in his pockets. He looked to be about twenty, his hair cut short, his face thin and intelligent. He was dressed in a blue suit made of a light, cheap cotton, but he wore such clothing comfortably. "The brains of the family," Sirius explained.

"Nice to see you _do_ exist," Sean said as he, too, shook Remus's hand, and Sirius gave his eldest brother a light punch in the arm before he moved on.

"And you've met Michael, unfortunately," Sirius grumbled, as the rest laughed, "and me, of course. Then there's Cassiopea, but call her Cassie or she won't even give you the time of day." Cassie frowned at her brother but smiled at Remus and it was the first look he'd gotten yet that he felt comfortable with. He smiled back. 

"Nice to meet you," Cassie said, and then she grinned the famed Black grin, "and if you've got any brains, you'll stay away from my brother."

"Shut up, Cassie," Sirius grumbled, giving her a look. Remus shrugged faintly. 

"No," Remus said, "I know what you mean." The entire family laughed at the way he said it, simple as his shoulders rose and fell resignedly. It felt familiar and oddly nice, though Remus could still feel Michael's eyes on him, not so much thoughtful as calculating, and it kept him on the edge of his toes, more nervous than he had been for a long while.

"Moving on," Sirius muttered, shooting them both half-heartedly nasty looks, "these are the last, the twins, Lyra and Peg. Short for Pegasus. Catching a pattern?" Remus smiled faintly, taking in the two young girls who stood staring up at him, wide-eyed and silent. "And this," Sirius continued, "is my mum. Mum, this is Remus."

"I hope we haven't terrified you too much." Sirius's mother stepped forward, looking down on the boy. Up close, she could see the nervous flickering in his eyes, but beneath that, the solid, admirable constitution that kept him standing firm. She searched his face and then nodded in approval. "But you don't look easily terrified." She smiled and nodded again. "All right," she went on in a louder voice, "let's get out before we get stuck in afternoon traffic!" The rest began to pile into the small car and Remus drew back for a moment. He had come far since his first terrified days at Hogwarts, but the idea of being packed into a small car with bodies crushed in on all sides was less than comforting to him. Sirius caught his eyes.

"It won't be that long," he said softly, "mum and I've magicked the car so it works sort of like a broomstick. We'll be home in half the time."

"I know," Remus said, "I'm all right." He met that smile with one of his own and picked up his suitcase as if it were a battering ram. He'd get over this initial nervousness soon enough, if only for Sirius's sake.   
  


Above all, Rhondda was cold. A snowstorm greeted them as Aquila parked the small, cramped car right out front of the Black house, which was a two story building of warm red brick mixed with whitewashed stone, and the wind was so harsh and so chill that even Michael, the most blustery and most stouthearted of them all, hurried to get the suitcases out of the car and into the house in order to escape the attack of such angry weather against him. It seemed, though, from the winking of light in the snow-fogged windows, that once inside the snug house that weather would have no effect on them. Remus kept close to Sirius still, and when the other boy entered, he followed close behind, both of them stamping their feet and shaking their hair free of snow.

"Here we are," Sirius leaned down to say in the privacy given them by the other's ignorant bustle, "home sweet home." Remus lifted his eyes to the ceiling and felt that expected warmth sweep over him. "My da should be here soon, with yours. Mum said he left to pick him up a while ago, so they shouldn't be caught in the storm." Remus rubbed his hands together to chase the chill from his half-numbed fingers. 

"It's very nice," he said truthfully. Sirius flashed a wide grin.

"It's cold," he murmured, hanging up his and Remus's coats, "c'mon. I'll show you my room, and maybe find a way to warm you up." The staircase to the cramped second floor was made of creaky boards and the banister of one long slab of roughly polished wood. In their slightly damp socks Sirius led the way quietly up the steps and all the way down a narrow hall to a doorway at the end, half open. 

"You have your own room?" Remus asked quietly, hiding his curiosity so even Sirius couldn't catch it in his voice.

"Fought Michael fist and tooth for it," Sirius replied proudly, pushing the door open. "After you." Remus stepped through the low doorway and into the room, looking around. It was chillier throughout the upstairs because the heat had yet to rise but it was snug enough, and smelled wonderfully of Sirius himself. Every corner, every shadow, sang gloriously of the boy's scent, and it took Remus a moment just to breathe it all in, commit every detail to memory, how the air moved around the room in which Sirius lived. 

The room itself was just as Remus expected it to be. 

Beneath the cleanliness it was half-messy, and every inch spoke of a half-term of disuse, as Sirius had been away at Hogwarts for five months beforehand. There were old posters on the wall above the bed, some curling in the edges from where they'd been tacked up years ago. Bands, movies, most of which Remus didn't recognize at all. The bed itself was small, the comforter plush no doubt filled with down. Out the window Remus could see the snow falling over a few scattered houses, and the light was graying from the clouds and the snowfall, shadows stretched in all the corners.

Behind him, Sirius closed the door, taking a few slow steps forward into the room, until he stood behind Remus at the window.

"It's nice here," Remus said softly, realizing he should speak, "cold, but beautiful." Sirius ran his fingers absently through his hair, shrugging a little. He could keep the grin from his lips but he couldn't keep the feeling of it from his chest, getting into his bloodstream, warming up the center of his stomach. 

"It's not that great," he mumbled, "nothing like the city, anyway." The palms of his hands itched. He could see the back of Remus's neck from where he stood, pale flesh revealed by the low neckline of a sweater just slightly too big for the small boy.

"No," Remus agreed, "nothing like the city." But the way he said it made it seem really different, more than just special, more than just wonderful. Pride suffused Sirius's cheeks, so that he was glad for the darkness of his room.

"Hey," he said softly, "still cold?" He took a hesitant step forward so that his chest brushed up against Remus's upper back and his breath ghosted over the side of Remus's cheek. When Remus shivered, it wasn't from the cold, but Sirius took it as an ample excuse to let his hands fall against Remus's hips. After that, he moved him closer. After that, he let his face, his lips, rest against that bared spot of Remus's neck. After that, they were both still, Remus warming to the feel of Sirius's body against his. He moved his cold hands slowly down to rest over the ones on his sides. 

"Maybe I was," he murmured breathlessly, though his heart was beating at a normal rate, "a little." 

They held each other for a little while and it was nice, Remus's discomfort and Michael's half-accusatory looks soothed over until they all but disappeared, a lurking nastiness in the back of his mind. 

As always, Sirius's hot breath against his cheek could assuage any troubles and disperse any misery. 

"I want to keep you here," Sirius murmured at one point, in a voice so soft it could barely be heard. Yet, for all that it was kept to a whisper, the words were powerfully strong, as if Sirius had learned suddenly that sometimes, that which was said in the most soft-spoken of voices was always the most powerful.

"There's a forest near your house," Remus replied, staying perfectly still, "isn't there." He had felt it when he looked out the foggy glass pane before him, chilled with condensation from the outside world. He couldn't see it, or how big it was, but had felt it humming, had thought perhaps he'd heard a hoot owl hoo-ing to the snow.

"Yeah," Sirius said, "yeah, not anything special." He twined his fingers in Remus's, enjoying the soft skin of Remus's palm.

"There are no forests," Remus thought aloud, "in the city." Which was perhaps why Etienne had taken him to Canterbury, where the only call of the wild was the occasional public park they passed by on their way to the library, or to pick up some fish and chips. In Hogwarts, it was always different, this living on the edge of the forest, for the magical barriers between human and animal were stronger there, strong enough to help him. In his heart, he thought that maybe he heard a wolf howling, and his blood rather than his body ran cold. 

"Is it a problem?" Sirius's voice rose slightly in question, curious and unsure. There were many things he had yet to learn, and it would take a while after that for him to actually understand them. 

"No," Remus said, hands tightening over Sirius's, "no, it's not a problem at all." It was a part of life. If he allowed himself to think of such parts of life as problems, then he would never forget, or never accept, their existence. He smiled slightly. "It's just that I'd like to see it. Sometime." He could feel Sirius relax in a pleasant way that meant he was satisfied. Remus liked feeling simple changes such as that, especially against his own body. He leaned back a little.

"Then I'll take you."

"Thank you."

"It's nice," Sirius went on, "especially when it snows. It's...well, you know. It's the sort of thing you'd like, all the snow, with everything quiet and white and things. Later on I'll take you to see it." Remus leaned back into the embrace, which grew more and more pleasant as the seconds passed. The last time they had been out walking in the snow was a few years ago and Remus remembered only the vast blue-white spread out before him, and the tune of Dalila's aria echoing in his ears.

They stood like that for a while longer without saying anything, Sirius watching nothing and Remus watching the snow fall, and then there was the sound of a car coming up the driveway, muffled by the snow, light reflected by it.

"Da's home," Sirius murmured regretfully, "which means your dad's here, too." 

"Sirius!" Aquila called up from below, as if she had been given some sort of cue. Sirius held Remus suddenly tighter and then pulled back, feeling foolish.

"We'd better," he began, "you know, you're dad's waiting, and all."

"Mm." Remus nodded, straightening himself out, readying himself to face the perhaps over-zealousness of Sirius's family and the cold of the snowy world without Sirius's arms.

They spent the night in Sirius's bed, the sleeping bag Sirius's mother had set out for Remus lying forgotten and empty on the floor. It seemed to be the first implementing of some unspoken rule just now established: that whenever they could, they would curl up together beneath the sheets, on the comforting softness of a shared bed. It was nicer that way, easier to sleep, easier for dreams to be soothing rather than confused or angry or scared. For Remus, it was a haven inside this unfamiliar house, to have those familiar arms wrapped around him. For Sirius, it was simply heaven, as it always was to have Remus close.

They spent the evening after Etienne's arrival encouraging conversation as best they could, Remus finding it a harder task than Sirius did, for the latter was always good with breaking the ice in a room, whereas Remus found that most often, his presence caused it. Orion Black was a loud, handsome man, whose face was no longer young despite the obvious fact that he was not very old at all. His features, worn and craggy from years and years of hard work, were at least kind, and familiar in that they could have been Sirius's in thirty years, had Sirius been destined for the mines. While Etienne's aged looks came from a weariness and a great pain that gnawed away his heart, turning all moments alone to a gray, spidery sadness, Orion's youth had been slowly crushed out of him by stone and cave-ins and long work days. Still, he was obviously a fighter, his eyes bright and his jaw set and his hands, wide and powerful, as determined as no doubt they once had been when he was just Sirius's age.

Aquila Black was just as strong as her husband, if not more so. There was a calculating light in her fringed eyes, intelligent and empathic, and she had a smile even to her frown that suggested the true motherliness of her nature. Remus liked her immediately for the way she did not fuss, did not coo, but merely was, a pillar of strength and a tower of understanding. Her children loved her, that much was plain to see. Even Sean, the eldest, had a close tie with her still that was not one of power or control but merely of friendship. Once, Remus had been friends with his mother and the part of him that did not banish all such memory from his mind longed for that relationship once more, despite how deeply he knew he would never again have it.

Conversation was staggered but at least not unpleasant. It took a while to get it going, but Etienne could speak of business with Sean and Remus could speak of schoolwork with Aquila, and Michael was the only one who kept silent, whittling away at a piece of wood over an old basin by the fire. Remus wondered absently what it was he was carving, or why it was that it felt as if those deep, Black eyes were fixed always on him, until he tried to catch them in the act. Then, they would be back on the piece of wood and the well sharpened knife, slicing away long strips of the pale wood, which fluttered downward gracefully in the firelight. 

In the corner, a freshly bought Christmas tree stood erect and proud and seasonal, decorated with winking ornaments and framed by candles. That alone was enough to ease the mood and bring both the two Lupins and the vast number of the Blacks together, amicable enough for pleasant fireside talk. Dinner had been delicious, the night had worn on, and at last Remus and Sirius retired to bed and to each other's arms with the weary gratefulness of two travelers returning home after a long and tiring journey.

_I wish_, Remus thought dreamily to himself, right before the two of them drifted off to sleep, _I could have a world like this to return to. One day._ But even as he thought such things he knew he was the sort of person better suited for the city -- if only because the industrialization and unnatural setting of it protected him from who and what he truly was.

The next few days were filled with Christmas shopping and cooking, sightseeing, games. While it was hard to get Sirius away from his brothers for even a minute, Remus had no objections to the time he spent with his family, watching the games they played in the snow, the mock fights they staged, as he would a little of pups someone had rescued from the winter cold. They threw snowballs and laughed and rolled around in the powdery white stuff, all of them, even Sean, allowing themselves to be little children in the comfort of Christmas and home. Cassie and the two twins helped out in the kitchen as Aquila baked and cooked enough in preparation to feed an entire army of starved beasts. Etienne spent most of his time in the lower city with Orion, talking, as Orion put it, about things only they could understand. Aquila had snorted, rolled her eyes, and everyone else had laughed. Etienne had merely looked a little sheepish, keeping almost as silent as Remus did.

Remus himself wondered when, or even if, Sirius would have time enough to show him the forest, the two of them on their own. He had seen the treehouse, about which Sirius had reminisced so many times, and he did have to admit it was made with expert hands, literally a palace, for what it was. He had looked out the single window, just a square opening in the wood, and had felt Sirius at his back, and for a little while, he had thought that was the privacy he had been searching for. Had thought, that is, until Michael called down from above and dragged Sirius off to chase after Sean, who had done something or other to offend him. With a whoop Sirius had jumped down and followed, and Remus had for the first time wondered if Michael was actively trying to keep the two of them apart.

Now they were, for the fourth time the past three days, staging another snowball fight, this one with all out trench warfare. Remus looked up from his book as Sirius let out a fabulous warcry and charged the enemy lines, a swirl of fairy-like snow ghosting out behind him. Remus allowed the slightest of smiles to ghost his lips as he slid his bookmark in to keep his place and let the book remain ignored in his lap, watching the action, now, chin resting on his palms. Sirius had knocked down the first wall of a sloppily made fort and was going towards the second as Michael tried to keep him from doing so.

It occurred to Remus then that this was something he would never be a part of. Not that he was jealous, no; it was that he was wistful, wondering. He wasn't this sort of person. He'd never had a snowball fight before in his life. It didn't seem to help that Michael regarded him as an intruder, a disturber of the peace. It was obvious the older boy didn't want him here, and would be glad enough when he left, even though it would mean Sirius was leaving, too. So Remus could only wonder why it was that Sirius's brother disliked him so. It wasn't a hate, not by a long shot, but Remus knew enough about people and their eyes to recognize complete distrust when he saw it.

There was nothing he could undo, no prejudices to disprove. It was, though, disconcerting at the most, and Remus chose to ignore it, watching instead the laughter from Sirius's lips condense hotly upon the air before fading. That was enough for him. He'd always been the sort to sit on the sidelines -- whether it was a time like now, or back in Hogwarts, at a Quidditch match -- and he'd learned long ago not to mind it. 

When Michael went down in the snow and cried out for mercy, Remus allowed himself to smile again, only this time, it was wider. With a cry of triumph and glee, Sirius tackled him down and sat on his chest, making the boy beg for mercy until Sirius's almost canine pride was satisfied. Then, he stood, brushing the already-melting snow off his clothes and lifting his hands up in another warcry -- this time one of victory.

"Wasn't I," he asked Remus, breathless, "simply fabulous, or what?" His cheeks were flushed and his eyes were bright, heat puffing out in little clouds before his parted lips. Remus ducked his head down, so that Michael, who had roused himself and was coming up behind them, would not see the nature of his smile.

"Oh, yes," he murmured, trying to keep his voice dry, "wonderful." Remus had found he could make even the most wonderful of truths seem dry or cold, nothing special. He wondered vaguely whether or not that was something to be proud of.

"Mum," Michael muttered good-humoredly, "is going to bloody kill us both for getting our clothes all wet like this. She'll skin us. _Alive_."

"What a big boy you are," Sirius scoffed, "afraid of his mum when he gets his clothes all mussed!" They had a good laugh at that, and even Remus knew that, had Aquila heard Sirius's previous words, the boy would be off and running in a snap to avoid the law laid down by her iron fist.

"Right, right," Michael grumbled, "you sure can _talk_, little brother. Let's just get cleaned up before she notices, else your legs'll have to be as fast as your mouth is -- and I know for a fact they're _not_." Sirius looked down at Remus as he passed by: those pale cheeks flushed with chill, those pale hands tucked into the sleeves of his shirt, that body curled protectively around the thick book just as if he were a pillbug of sorts, retreating into the safety of his own shell. It dawned on him suddenly that there was a coldness in the air that came not from the threat of the snowclouds gathering, but rather from Michael's own body language. It gave Sirius pause to think. Something about the bow to Remus's back, something about the set of Michael's jaw, didn't feel as it should.

He frowned, feeling troubled and unsure as he followed his brother inside. 

"So this is it," Sirius explained as he plowed through the fresh, previously unmarred snow. "The forest used to have a name a long time ago but I've forgotten it. It's from Gypsies, I know that much. Something real low sounding, low in your throat. Mum used to tell all of us that if we were bad children she'd lose us in these woods and no one'd ever find our bones. I was terrified of it for a while -- and then, Michael and Sean took me in, and showed me all the secrets it's got. Like, there's this old cottage in there someone abandoned a long time ago, but the roof's still thatched up nice and it's kinda warm in there, if you set a fire beneath the mantle. And the floor's a little mossy, but it's got glass windows and it's really classy, or something, if you can find it, through all the snow." Remus listened to Sirius as he talked on, enjoying the sound of such silence broken only by the harmony of Sirius's tones. They had changed in the past few months, Remus noted, changed to sound a little more adult, even so far as to say, a little more manly. Remus, however, would never tell Sirius that. It would get him far too pigheaded. "And so if we do find it, maybe, it'd be nice to spend some time there," Sirius had gone on, "you know, just the two of us." 

It was going to snow again. Remus could tell from the way the clouds were gathering close together, not for comfort, but to plot, to plan, and to destroy. He missed a beat in his rhythmical steps at Sirius's words, then allowed himself the fleeting whisper of a smile.  
  
"That would be nice," he admitted softly, "very." He turned his face just slightly to see Sirius's, but the other boy had his eyes fixed on the interlacing of the trees, which seemed now more like bars than anything else. The forest had a wild sort of call to it, bitter but enticing, exotic and strange. It smelled of dirt and leaves and warm things, moist things, beneath the soil where the roots coiled. Remus licked his lips softly.

"You've been real quiet, lately," Sirius said suddenly.

"Hm?"

"I said, you've been real quiet, lately," Sirius repeated, sighing a bit. He held a branch back, shaking free a centimeter or two of snow from it, and ducked a little as it sent a miniature snowstorm down on them. "Sorry about that." Remus shrugged it off. He'd barely even noticed, though there was a spot of wet cold on his nose, which he wrinkled away.

"It isn't anything," Remus murmured, "just the weather, I think." There was something about the snow that made you think. Sirius, knowing Remus as well as he did, would take that excuse with no further pressing of the issue, though he still felt a nagging wonder deep in the back of his mind. He ignored it, beating the way through the snowy underbrush, clearing a path for Remus to make it easily through after him. 

They walked on after that in mutual silence, no sound but for the shifting of brittle branches and falling of the snow, and occasionally the snapping of wood as Sirius pressed to hard against a younger branch and it broke clean in half. There seemed to be no wildlife, or perhaps all the smaller animals could feel Remus coming, and had fled beforehand. The cold had heightened Remus's senses, so that each sound as well as every moment of silence fluttered breathlessly through his system and affected the pounding of his heart. It was such a feeling he had never quite indulged in before, the cold of the snow, the familiarity of the forest, the sense of perfect belonging. As if this, and not a fireside, and not a comfortable bed, and not a shelve of books, were his true home. He knew it was not, but it was nice to imagine, just for a moment, that he belonged to this world not as a track in the snow but a branch from a tree or a root beneath the snow.

Somewhere above a snow owl took off through the branches, the one bird that seemed to have remained. A flare of teeth and fur and hot blood raged up within Remus's gut, and Remus's hands trembled into fists as he pressed such urges down.

"Well," Sirius said at last, "here we are." He fell still and Remus drew up behind him, looking out over his shoulder upon a small cottage covered in snow, thatched roof peeking out beneath the whiteness, one glass window winking through a coating of slick ice. The sun, which fell down through the lattice of leaves above their heads, caught on the glass and shimmered brightly, enticing. Having a house, man-made, in the middle of such a natural setting, was almost soothing to Remus's boy side, a barrier between him and the wolf. "You wanna go inside?" Sirius looked back over his shoulder at Remus's pale, delicate face, almost as white as the snow, the only color in it the flush of his cheeks and lips. It was hard to keep himself from kissing that mouth, especially in front of his brothers.

But Sirius always had to wonder what Michael and Sean would think, and he knew above all that his father would never approve of such love.

In his world, you married a nice girl and set up in a nice, snug place, supporting your inevitable children with the meager money you made working in the mines. One man never looked at another, no boy thought of anything but the curvy daughters of their neighbors. That was the way it was, no room for change, no room for differing tastes or opinions.

However, now wasn't the time to think of such things. He bowed a little, not entirely facetious, and motioned for Remus to lead the way. Remus nodded slightly and did so, moving soundlessly through the snow and having little difficulty in forcing the door open.

Inside, it was chilly but clean, as if someone had come in not a few days before to dust every inch of the plain but sturdy wood. There was a fireplace, into which some snow had fallen through the chimney, and an old, old bed in the corner, just a mattress upon a frame, sheets long stripped and taken away. There was a sunken armchair whose cushions were ancient and weary, but all in all, it reminded Remus of his own humanity, and for that, he was glad.

"Make yourself at home," Sirius said, grinning from ear to ear. He bent down to a pile of wood by the mantle and began to light a fire in the fireplace, looking around with an even wider grin as he lit it with his wand. Damn protocol, he figured, just for the sake of lighting a fire and keeping Remus as warm as possible.

"All right," Remus murmured, favoring the creaky bed over the sunken chair, sitting down on the edge to test it out. It let out a low groan and then gave up all protest, too old and too worn to even care at this sudden intrusion. Sirius stood, wondering if Remus knew how suggestive he could be, without ever meaning it.

"Comfortable?" Sirius shrugged off his jacket and tossed it over the old chair, moving across the small room to sit at Remus's side. Remus smiled halfway, one side of his mouth quirking up further.

"Could be worse," he said.

"Yeah," Sirius agreed, "and it could be better." He leaned forward to kiss the corner of that familiar mouth, and then the center of it. Remus let his eyes fall shut.

"You seem," he sighed deeply, "to have a one track mind." But it was obvious he wasn't complaining.

The bed behind them groaned again as Sirius eased Remus's jacket off his shoulders and let it drop to the bed beneath. It was nice to have a little privacy, where they knew there was more than just a locked door to separate them from the rest of the world. Now, there was a half mile of snow and trees between them and the village. It was heaven.

They kissed for a little while and then talked for a little while, and then kissed for a little while longer. It began to snow outside and when they talked they watched that for a bit, the way the snowflakes began slow and few and far between, and then grew in speed and number until all the world turned perfectly white, the emptiest color without any sound or accusation. 

"I wouldn't mind if it was just you and me and no one else," Sirius murmured to Remus's neck.

"You would," Remus replied.

"No," Sirius insisted, "I wouldn't."

"You'd get lonely, with just me, with only me." He ran his fingers through Sirius's hair. Sirius needed, adored, craved the contact of people. It was a trait Remus had never shared. Were it not for the knowledge that Sirius, who Sirius was, would be destroyed by the loss of other people, Remus knew he himself would be perfectly content if there were no one else in all the world besides Sirius and he.

"Maybe," Sirius admitted, "but I'd be happy. You don't understand, Remus. You don't -- you don't understand." He closed his eyes, long, dark lashes brushing over Remus's skin in butterfly kisses. 

"Don't understand what?" Remus's voice was thick with sudden pleasure, the kind that knotted in his stomach just like the wolf's fierce desire, only much more wonderful, for all that it was terrifying.

"What it is," Sirius whispered, "what it _is_." He touched Remus's hip, touched his thigh, and Remus cried out very, very softly, trying almost unsuccessfully to muffle the sound. He felt that tightness more acutely than he ever had before, deep in the very center of his stomach. Sirius's face was hot but pale, his hands shaking just slightly, his mouth set in a determined line that Remus could not see for all that Sirius's face was buried in his neck. 

"What what is?" Remus managed to ask, his voice choked, breaking in the middle of the sentence. Sirius lifted Remus up by the waistband of his jeans, which were suddenly and oddly tight, in the strangest, pleasantest of ways. 

"These feelings," Sirius murmured, breathless, "these feelings you give me. All the time, Remus. All the time." He was never one for words, never knew what to say or how to say it. He was never brave enough for words, which had, he thought, to come out just right, or not at all. Actions were different. You thrust yourself into them, didn't even have to think. That wasn't bravery, not by a longshot. It looked like bravery, but it weas simply foolhardy, careless.

He didn't know how to speak, around Remus. He barely even knew how to be. He barely even knew how to _breathe. _And it came upon him slow and sweet, like warm breath, like sunshine bright mornings. It came upon him wonderfully, left him helpless and warm in its wake.

And that was just his _mind._ There was always his _body_, as well. Michael and Sean had told him things, all the times they'd been with girls behind the movie theater or in the back of Sean's old car, or up in their rooms when their parents were away. Sirius himself was fifteen. He knew from dreams what it was he wanted. He wasn't going to take it, just wanted maybe to see it, or to feel it with Remus's soft skin beneath his fingertips. The only matter was, he didn't know how Remus felt, about anything, ever.

"What feelings?" Sirius pressed a hand between Remus's thighs, questioning, daring. It was as much of an answer as Remus needed, as this odd pleasure pumped like blood through his veins and made his vision, for an impossible moment, go completely white.

"I don't know what you want," Sirius admitted softly against Remus's cheek. "I don't know what to give you." Beneath those words, though, there was a promise of _anything._ He would give him anything it was in his power to give, and beyond that, and beyond.

"I think," Remus whispered, voice very soft, "I think, you."

Sirius moved, slipping one hand beneath the waistband of Remus's jeans, eyes closing. It was new, very new, a sort of newness that heralded growing up just a little, but feeling as mindless as a little child, all at once. Still, Sirius kissed him, lips on lips, lips on cheeks, lips on neck, lips everywhere at once and still managing to move in the slow way that Remus loved. 

It was as if Sirius thought he could tell Remus he loved him through the easiest way, of motion, of touch. All that came through, however, was a helplessness and a pleasure that Remus had never before experienced, with Sirius's hand shoved down into his pants, seemingly so careless like that.

Things built quickly and ended quickly, Remus moving forward as fast as he could into Sirius's fingers, against his palm. While it lasted, it was wonderfully intimate and burning hot. There would later be some amount of shy embarrassment between them but for now, it was all on instinct, all based on what Sirius knew of his own body and the way Remus trembled and whimpered, hyper-sensitive, to his touch. And then Remus went rigidly still and there was a pleasure, blinding white, that took him out of himself and into someone, something, else, that was not boy and was not animal and probably wasn't man, either. It was what could happen, at the dangerous excitement from Sirius's touch. It made him throw back his head and bare his neck and choke a little on his ragged breaths, so that he thought perhaps his heartbeat had stopped, or altered, changed forever by this one moment, and the way his blood froze while it burned throughout his limbs.

He tumbled back against the bed with Sirius over him, wide-eyed, studious. The first thing Remus saw, when he came back to himself, were those deep blue eyes peering into his own. Questioning. Unsure. That hand was still down inside his pants, wrist against the skin of his hip. Sirius was just as frozen as he had been, a few moments before, and it seemed as if the other boy was waiting for something, an answer to an unspoken but ageless question.

Sort of like, _how was that?_

Remus licked his lips, which felt dry and cool as the air hit the moistness upon them. It was hard to move, his body still thrumming with the ebbing of that now-distant pleasure. He shivered a little, convulsed as an extra, reminiscent thrill ran through him, and as his eyes fell slowly shut to ease the burning of his eyes the fullest smile spread itself over his bruised lips. Better, he knew, than any words.

Sirius let out a soft, relieved laugh, closing his own eyes and letting his muscles relax. Slowly, he pulled his hand away, flushed and a little excited himself, simply by watching the loosened beauty of Remus's blushing face. Something about that face, he thought to himself, that wasn't like anyone else's. Something that made him feel a way no girl ever could. Something that made him know, without a single doubt, what he wanted, not just for now, but for always. He wasn't the sort of person who liked to put that kind of commitment -- forever -- into anything at all, but this was Remus. This was different.

It was warm in the cottage, now, the fire flickering lazily over the crackling logs in the fireplace. Sirius slipped his arms around Remus's shoulders tentatively and pulled him close, Remus putting up no protest as he did so.

For a long time they did not speak in the silence of the snow.

"Everyone'll be wondering where we've gotten to," Sirius thought aloud, breaking the silence at last. "I wonder if it's time for supper, yet." There was no clock in the place, which was perhaps why time had been passing oddly, dictated only by how heavy or how fast the snow fell.

"We should be getting back," Remus said softly, as if he truly didn't want to admit it. 

"We can come here again tomorrow," Sirius promised as he pulled away. Even leaving the feel of Remus's body was something he hated to do. With a deep, greatly plagued sigh he stood and crossed the room as Remus sat up, coming his hair with his fingers. Sirius kicked out the fire, watching the sparks fly around his feet in silence. Remus pulled his jacket on, though it was poor substitute for the warmth of Sirius's arms around him.

"I'd like that," Remus said finally. He bent down, picking Sirius's own coat up, and crossed the room to where Sirius stood, back to him. "Your jacket," he murmured, holding it out.  
  
"Thanks," Sirius returned, shrugging his shoulders into it. He flashed Remus a grin. "I really would like it to be just you and me," he said, as they moved to leave. "No matter where we were, you know? No matter what we were doing. Just the two of us, and no one else." He stepped out the door into the blue and white patterns of the pale, cold snow, letting his words be swallowed up by the wind and the vast silence of the winter that blanketed them both.

"You can look, now." Sirius dropped his hands from where they had been covering Remus's closed eyes, and Remus blinked them open quickly, squinting to the bright light in the garage. "I've been working on it for a really long time," Sirius went on, "and mostly by myself, 'cause Michael can't work with the magic part, and mum doesn't know about it 'cause if she did she'd stop me quick as that, and don't you know it."

Before Remus was the sleek, lovingly polished black lines of an old but very well maintained motorcycle, catching the sunlight once Sirius tugged the canvas cloth off of it. It didn't seem to be in the best of shape, beneath that polish, but there was something a little bit off about it that suggested it would no doubt work despite how old and pathetic it really did seem.

For a while, Remus was silent; he hoped Sirius thought he was giving it some deeper study, as opposed to just thinking what in Heaven's name he was supposed to say about it. It was a motorcycle. Why a motorcycle should in any way be a source of excitement to him, he was yet to discover. No, Remus admitted, he was not the manliest of his sex, but if manly meant getting thrilled over the mere sight of a big black motorbike, then he wasn't quite sure if he wanted to change his foolish ways.

"It's," Remus said, "well. I never once guessed." Sirius grinned widely, proudly.

"Isn't it great?" he asked, moving forward to run a hand across that smooth, polished surface lovingly, a tender caress. Remus was immediately sure that this was the sort of thing Sirius and his brother's understood, though Remus himself was left a little bit at a loss for words. He didn't know what to think.

"You said," he attempted, "you were using magic on it. For what?" It looked like any old motorbike, to him, though he could have been missing something. He tended to miss a lot.

"Oh," Sirius said, eyes sparkling, "well. That's the part I wanted to show you." He moved in a circle around the vehicle and then stopped in front of Remus again, lounging against the black body, face holding secrets that threatened to burst forth at any moment.

"Well?" Remus prodded. He wasn't all that curious, but it would be best for Sirius to seem as if he was.

"Well," Sirius said slyly, slowly, "I've been working on it for a long time. And this summer, I finally got it to work."

"What?" Remus said after a moment of silence, realizing Sirius wanted Remus to urge him on. It worked immediately. 

"It works like your average Nimbus does," Sirius explained, gesturing towards the motorbike behind him, "only on a more basic level. After all, I'm not quite good enough to configure that. Not nearly as good. And I probably never will be. But it's the same way mum and I got the car working, I suppose, just a primitive version of your average broomstick."

"So what you're saying is," Remus said, with the proper amount of incredulity, "you've put magic on the motorcycle to make it fly?" So that was the funny thing about it, the little waver in air around it, the little inconsistency of its aura.

"Pretty much," Sirius replied. He couldn't stop grinning, so he kept his head down, rubbing the back of his neck with the palm of his hand. "Yeah."

"Is it safe?" That was the sort of question Sirius would love, for it would appeal both to his sense of danger and his own pride over the no doubt highly detailed workings of the machine.

"Course it's safe," Sirius scoffed, "I've worked for more than two years on it. It's safe. Down to the last gear shift, it's safe -- maybe not for driving on the roads, but for flying, you can't find anything safer! Anyway," Sirius said, "I thought maybe we could test her out. She if she holds two as nicely as she holds one." Remus had to keep himself from smiling at that. He was flattered, yes, but there was something undeniably ridiculous about assigning motor vehicles a gender specific pronoun. He took a step forward and touched the handlebar, tentatively at first, then letting his palm fall to rest against it.

"I'd like that," Remus said, with a voice that stated his complete trust of Sirius's worked. It was literally impossible not to feel him swell with pride at the words.

"Great!" he exclaimed quickly, and then coughed, trying to keep the apparent excitement from his voice, "great. Here -- let me help you on her." Before Remus could say anything Sirius's hands were on his waist, lifting him up so that he could slip into the seat without any trouble at all. Sirius hoisted himself up behind him, stomach against back, and he stole a quick nip of Remus's earlobe before he'd revved the engine with a vulgar, yet strangely musical growl of the old motor. The garage door was opened wide to the sunlight and Sirius maneuvered the nose of the bike easily towards exit, pressing down on the gas and, in doing so, pressing closer to Remus's body. Remus was never one for leaving the comfort of his home, the ground, which was why he had never been good on broomsticks and simply refused to ever ride in a place. He had been give feet for a simple reason, he rationalized, and not wings, so staying on the ground was the only sensible course of action to take.

The motorcycle coughed and spluttered, Remus leaning back a little, so he could hold onto one of Sirius's arms and keep his eyes closed.

"Hold on," Sirius said, simply because he'd always wanted to say something like that, and the tone of his voice was perfect for those words, stern but wild all at once. He laughed softly, gave out a delighted whoop of expectation, and then they'd zoomed out of the garage, lifting off the ground as if they were light as air. 

Remus clutched tight to the sleeve of Sirius's coat and squeezed his eyes shut tight. He felt his stomach sink down to the vicinity of his feet and for a moment he thought he was going to be ill. It was only by sheer force of will that he wasn't, commanding himself to calm, commanding his nerves to steel themselves against the foolishness of such flight.

Beneath them, he could _feel_ the world passing, too far down for any sort of comfort, too unreal from where they were for his stomach to stop churning like crazy. So long as he didn't look down, however, he could open his eyes, keep them fixed on either Sirius's shoulder or, if he turned a bit in his seat, on Sirius's face. Anything to keep from seeing the world passing below him, people dotted like ants on the rolling plane of snow.

"Isn't it great?" Sirius asked, and Remus held him a little tighter, swallowing hard.

"I've never liked flying," Remus said, chancing to peer over Sirius's forearm and, in doing so, catching a glimpse of the life in miniature beneath on solid ground, "but it's better than a broomstick, I think." The gusts of cold wind whipping through his hair and numbing his flushed face were oddly refreshing, if not quite chilly, and the warmth of Sirius's body firmly against his own was a comforting familiarity that reassured him, at least to the point of trying to enjoy himself. It wasn't the sort of pasttime he was made for, not by a long shot, but it wasn't something entirely miserable. The motorbike rumbled underneath him, spluttering a little, but still feeling trustworthy.

"Oh, she's better than a broomstick, all right," Sirius bragged, because he couldn't help himself, "miles better. I can't believe no one ever thought of this before!"

"Mm," Remus agreed, loosening his tight hold on Sirius's arm. Once he got used to it, it really wasn't that bad, after all. He didn't necessarily have to ignore the lack of ground beneath the motorbike's wheels so much as not let it bother him. It was a fact that they were are this very moment speeding through the air, nothing holding them up besides Sirius's magic. All right, Remus decided, he could accept that. He didn't have to enjoy it, but he could accept it, as he would any other ride.

"Mum'd kill me," Sirius went on, and then he let out an infectious, glorious laugh, tossing his head back, letting the wind race like fingers through his hair. "Isn't it great?" Remus sighed deeply and settled back against the stable contentment of Sirius's chest, allowing himself the slightest of smiles.

"Mm," he murmured again, "it is."

Sirius guided them over treetops and along a river, then further, out over the sea. Beneath them it stretched on and on, twinkling, frigid but beautiful, and Remus found himself watching the sights they passed half eagerly, now. Sirius knew him all too well, Remus realized some time later, as he looked back on that afternoon, for they passed over somber things, solemn things, landmarks of great dignity and also great beauty -- all of which Sirius knew Remus would love to see. From above, a previously ordinary world was transformed into one of delicate splendor, particularly with the improvement added by the elegant snowscapes. Waves moved in creased wrinkles, crawing over the surface of the water. People moved with insectile precision, and it was all the more delightful to wonder whether they laughed or cried, worked or played, against the backdrop of the endless snow. The rumble of the old bike became friendly, a sort of music to set the scene. Remus rested his head back against the curve of Sirius's neck to his shoulder and closed his eyes against the wintry air.

It was one thing to imagine, and quite another to see.

In silence, Sirius turned the bike towards the task of landing, setting down as easily as if he'd been born knowing how to drive, or fly, this thing. Cutting through the snow to slip unseen through the still-open garage door, Sirius parked carefully and cut the engine, the splutter and grumble fading out, everything finally still beneath the two of them.

"What do you think?" Sirius hopped off the motorbike and assisted Remus in doing the same, enjoying it simply for the fact that it allowed them to touch a little more, just a little more. 

"It grew on me," Remus admitted, lifting a hand to smooth out Sirius's ruffled hair. Sirius didn't even flush at the touch, but rather leaned into it, letting out a pleased sigh over the contact. 

"I just wish it'd be allowed at Hogwarts," Sirius mourned, covering up the motorbike once more with a wistful shake of his head. "Could you just see Professor McGonagall if she caught me with this thing? Worse'n what mum'd do to me, you can bet." He shrugged, tossing his head, resembling a spirited horse as he did so. 

"Not only would she confiscate it, but she just might keep you from leaving school grounds for the rest of your life," Remus mused, readjusting the zipper on his coat. "Come on. It's about time for lunch, isn't it?" 

"Yeah," Sirius said, brightening. With one last, longing look thrown back to the enchanted motorbike, he trotted out into the snow, Remus following dizzily, his feet unsure whether or not they truly belonged on the ground, after all.

"Don't know what the neighborhood's coming to." Sean warmed his hands by the fire, snorting softly. It was late; night had long since fallen with the last of the snow flurries over the village. Only he, Michael and Sirius remained awake, Sirius convinced into staying after Remus had gone to bed by his older brothers, almost, Sean realized, because of their jealousy of his soft-spoken friend.

"All sorts of things," Michael muttered, hands around a cup of strong tea, something that had always helped him to sleep, as it helped his father, and his father before him, to do, "are possible, lately." Sirius listened with fading interest, drowsiness overtaking him. Though he loved his brothers, and did want to spend as much time as was possible with them, it was still hard to keep hiding his frequent yawns. 

"I just can't believe he's allowed to stay here," Sean went on, voice a low, dangerous mutter. Somewhere during the night their discussion had changed course towards something else, something obviously offensive, but Sirius had missed what, exactly, that topic was. He leaned forward in his armchair, interest caught. "Someone should run him out, and that's all I have to say on the matter."

"People have tried," Michael replied slowly, over the rim of his tea mug, "believe me, but he's of a stubborn sort."

"If we allow people like that to live around these parts the village'll be overrun in the blink of an eye and then where will we be?" Sean puffed out a snort, lighting up the last cigarette from his pack and puffing it in lazy smoke rings. "I'm planning on having children one day -- what will I be bringing them up to inherit?"  
  
"A town poisoned by perversion, that's what," Michael returned, voice growing angry. "He and his little lover, the two of them rotting this town from the inside out, thinking there's nothing we can do about it."

"Me and three of the boys tried to torch his house a few weeks ago," Sean said in a low, conspiratorial voice, "but he caught on to us and put it out 'fore it could do any damage at all. If he had any mind at all he'd take it as a damn warning and get the hell out 'fore we do worse to him. We can and he knows it." He rubbed his hands near the flickering flames with a thoughtful frown creasing his brown, dark blue eyes caught up eerily with the firelight. His face looked almost malicious, from where Sirius reclined, and it made the boy frown, himself.

"We haven't any room here for them that's iron," Michael muttered, "and those are the best pair of fairies I've seen in my life, pinker'n Cassie's dollies, for a fact." Sirius squinted.

"What are you talking about?" he murmured softly, leaning forward, movement signaled by a creaking of wood beneath him. Sean and Michael turned around simultaneously, as if they hadn't known Sirius was still there, still awake, still listening to them speak. Michael's eyes rested on Sirius's face for a moment, as if he could see something there he truly despised. After a moment, the expression passed fleetingly from the older boy's face, and Michael was grinning ruefully.

"Didn't know you were still awake," he said, leaning back in his own chair. He looked from Sirius to Sean, lifting a brow in question. Sean shrugged. 

"Well," Sirius said, trying to look insulted and as attentive as possible, "I am, anyway. Who're you talking about?"

"Someone I used to know from school just moved back here," Sean began slowly, "from college. He's brought this -- friend -- with him."

"What's he done?" Sirius was still interested, more awake now than he had been before.

"It's not what he's done," Sean said, casting an unreadable look towards Michael, "but what he is, rather." There were a few minutes of silence while Sirius registered this. Then, he spoke up again.

"Well?" His voice sounded strangely dubious, even to himself. "What _is_ he, then?"

"Your average Nancy-boy," Michael said, his voice laced with a bitter disgust Sirius had never heard before -- or, he had, but he did not wish to remember it, since it was just how Lucius Malfoy sounded when he spoke of mudbloods. "A pansy-arsed faggot if I ever saw one."  
  
"In other words," Sean elaborated, with less vehemence but still with enough prejudice and distaste to make Sirius's blood freeze in his veins, "he and his friend are...lovers. Two men defiling the same bed, one of the worst sins you can inflict upon a town, not to mention yourself, or the church."

Sirius thought of Remus and himself, curled up around each other upon mutual agreement, sharing the same bed in what his brothers quite obviously believed to be the most revolting sort of relationship there could be. It jarred him a little, this sudden realization of what it would mean to his family, what he and Remus did. It had never occurred to him before that they wouldn't approve. Certainly he had never even entertained the thought that they would hate it. 

So maybe that was what he'd seen in Michael's eyes. Maybe, Michael knew, or simply suspected. Perhaps knowledge, or a notion, of such prejudices, was what had kept Remus so quiet for the duration of his visit.

Sirius pushed down the urge to say, 'but what if they love each other?' Something told him his brothers wouldn't understand or take kindly to those words, and might go so far as to be offended by them. It seemed even to himself suddenly a foolish choice of words, childish and inane. He swallowed his own voice down, for the first time in his life silencing himself before he spoke carelessly.

"Don't worry about it, anyway," Sean said, leaning back to the fire, a troubled expression chased over his face, "we're taking care of it. By the time you come back for the summer, they'll be gone and hopefully no one else'll be stupid enough to try'n stay where they couldn't." Both Sean and Michael's expressions looked dangerous, Sirius realized, as the abnormal lighting from the dying fire danced over their features. Dangerous and, as Sirius had never thought so before of any of his family members, terrifying. If Sean or Michael ever discovered the more-than-friendly nature of Sirius and Remus's friendship, which Sirius realized now he needed to keep as a secret for both his and Remus's sakes, then he wasn't quite sure what would happen, or where he would stand with any of his family. Truthfully, he hadn't told them what he felt over Remus because he had told only Dumbledore with words, and perhaps Etienne with one shared look between them. Other than that, no one knew, besides Remus, of course, and even Remus didn't know the whole truth.

"You look troubled, brother," Michael said softly, head cocking to the side. "Something we've said hasn't bothered you?" Again, he was searching Sirius's face for that thing he was intent upon finding and torching out of him, as he would do to those two poor lovers. It was an injustice Sirius was muted and dumb against, helpless, miserable. He couldn't allow himself to think about it, but he couldn't keep his mind from dwelling on the image, either. What was he, if he allowed it to happen? What was he, if he kept silent?

But what was he to his family, if he spoke up against it?

Sirius grinned faintly, shrugging, hoping his eyes did not betray the queasiness of his stomach and the pains constricting his chest. 

"Nothing," Sirius lied, pushing himself to stand, "I'm just tired, that's all. Think I'll turn in for the night, or mum'll be wondering why I'm falling asleep in my breakfast tomorrow morning." The lie passed through, though it troubled the air and the fire flickered in objection to it. 

"Night," Michael said, looking away from him. Things between them would never be the same again, both of them knew. Sean, who was nowhere near as connected with Sirius as Michael was, could not feel the inherent tension in the air as he kept himself warmed by the flames.

"G'night," Sean echoed, not even looking up.   
  
As Sirius dragged himself up the stairs his feet felt no lighter than the lead weight his heart had become, beating slowly not in weariness but rather in grief. He felt sick to his stomach, still, but he resolved himself on one thing: to never let his family know. It wouldn't be a lie; rather, he would be obscuring the truth, keeping it from them for their own good.

_What you don't know,_ Sirius figured, _won't ever get the chance to hurt you. _

For the first time in his life he locked his door twice behind him before slipping into bed at Remus's side. The other boy shifted in sleep, making a soft, content sound as the extra weight was added to the mattress and the bedsheets rustled with Sirius's arrival. 

"I'll keep you safe," Sirius promised him, voice a low whisper, "I'll keep all your secrets safe."

No matter what the personal sacrifice might be.

"They are nothing like us," Etienne told his son, though he knew Remus had already come to that conclusion on his own, and did not need to be told a thing about the nature of Sirius's family. "They are nothing like anything we are used to." He took long strides in the pale snow, long and thoughtful and strangely powerful, for all that he was a quiet man, just as soft-spoken in so many ways as his son was.

"They're just like he is," Remus replied, glad for the time alone with his father, the time to think with Etienne thinking with him. 

"And I suppose you are more used to it," Etienne thought aloud, "or at least, young enough to accept the bravado?" Of all of them, Etienne found Aquila Black the easiest to take, while all the men, or perhaps simply boys, of the Black family were a bit too loud, a bit too self-sure, a bit too imposing, at least for Etienne's liking. 

"It doesn't bother me," Remus answered truthfully, "not in Sirius, at least." They had moved past the scattering of houses and on into the snowed fields beyond, in the opposite direction of the forest. Etienne would not set foot in it since they arrived, would not allow himself to be drawn into the embrace of the moist green woods. Vengeance waited there for him, he knew. As long as there was Remus, to love and to protect, he would not let that revenge claim him, despite how he may have deserved it. He was no glutton for punishment, and took only what he could upon his shoulders. Judgement day would come for him and when it did, he would have no complaints. He was the sort who went gently into things, with a saddened smile tugging at his lips, wrinkling in the corners of his pale eyes. He was determined that Remus be nothing like him.

"Still," Etienne went on, "they're very hospitable, and the cooking is delicious." For the most part, he did not want Remus to think he begrudged him this visit, this greatest of all Christmas gifts. "And it is lovely here."

"Like it was," Remus said, and to avoid naming anything, he chose merely to follow that with, "back then." When it snowed in C¦urdeloupe it was truly a sight to behold, everything glistening with ice over snow, your breath freezing in what might be the lines of poetry before your nose and lips, ponds iced over just enough to speak of the frigid water beneath that could suck you in and never return you. On the trees, slim icicles hung, falling to the ground when a gust of heavy wind slammed against the tree branches, and there it would shatter with a sound like the tinkling of bells. Dalila had songs for winter, too, the most chilling of them all, like the embrace of a Snow Queen fairytale in the dead of night. They lit fires and Dalila held Remus upon her lap, weaving wordless tales in with the flickering of the flames. Etienne would stand in a corner and watch, wondering and speechless, just as Dalila would have kept him for all time, at odds with the two of them, alienated and alone.

Etienne observed Remus's drawn face, the somber lines, the flush to his cheeks. There was color in him against the gray, bright things in with the pale. You only had to search for them. And once you found them, they were like hidden treasures, something you remembered always, no matter what. The more you worked towards something, towards a laugh, or a kiss, or a connection, the more you cherished it once you had it within your grasp.

Perhaps, Etienne wondered, if Remus's childhood had been as Sirius's was, if Remus's family had been as bursting with life as the Black household, whether or not his boy would be any happier, any more sure of himself, or if all that he had gone through had simply made him stronger than any protection could have. He moved through the snow like a part of it, as if he belonged to the light flurries as well as the crisp, clear air. And there were times when he seemed a part of the storm, as well, with his eyes bright and his cheeks suffused with cold pink.

"What do they think of me?" Remus asked, after they had walked in silence for a long while, Etienne studying, Remus's eyes drawn within himself as he buried his mind in thought. Etienne blinked his eyes almost owlishly, breaking the rhythm of his confident strides. "What could they possibly think of me?"

"Does it matter?" Etienne remembered the way it had been, when his family had rejected Dalila from the very start. It had only made his love burn brighter, determined in the face of adversity. He knew without even having to think about it that Sirius would fight against all odds with a deeply ingrained passion to keep anyone or anything from taking Remus from him. That was the sort of headstrong child Sirius was, and the sort of headstrong man he would become. It was easy enough for him, for anyone, to see it in the boy's nature.

"I think it does." Remus moved so he could look back over his shoulder as he kept walking at the tracks they had made in the snow. Shifted over by the wind, they could have been the tracks of any man, child or animal, just passing through. It was anonymous and in that anonymity, comforting.

"I don't know," Etienne said, allowing a smile to slip into his voice, "but I'm inclined to wonder how they could ever dislike you."

"As you said," Remus murmured dubiously, "they aren't like us. They're -- strong, for one thing, strong in a loud way, strong in a way that makes you _know_ it. I don't think they much approve of my spending time over poetry, or in libraries, or at museums. I should be building snow forts -- treehouses -- playing Quidditch, or," Remus searched blindly, "soccer, or...something, with them, like them, but I'm not -- I'm not good at it. I don't think they like me, because of that, or because of something else that I can't even fix." He stated each point as if he were arguing a thesis. It was clear to see he'd done a lot of thinking about this. Etienne felt his heart convulse but showed no signs of it.

"Perhaps that's what they're used to, yes," Etienne replied, having to pick his words very carefully so that he would not further wound his son's sensitivity, "but obviously, whatever it is that you are is what has drawn Sirius to you in the first place. And," Etienne continued hurriedly, before Remus could interrupt, "it is also what will keep him with you. You're different, Remus, but that's not necessarily a bad thing; certainly, there are at least a few people, myself included, who do not seem to think so. Differences are what make great men."

"I will never be great," Remus said, but there was no bitterness in his voice, only a heaviness that spoke of age and wisdom far surpassing the boy's years, "I just want to be happy."

"You shall have that, too, _mon fils_," Etienne vowed, "I promise you." As long as there was Sirius in his son's life, as long as Etienne was there to protect him and fight for him as he had contracted to do that dark night which smelled of blood and gunpowder, then Remus would have the happiness for which he was seeking. It was something that Etienne did not just believe but rather something that he knew, assumed because he would always fight for it, so long as Remus did. 

It was something the Blacks did not understand, or at least did not seem to. The quietest of fights were always the bravest of battles. That which you did not hear was that which was most powerful, and that which you did not even whisper of was that which confronted the gravest and hardest of tasks. Remus himself, quietest of boys, smallest of children, gravest of solemn souls, was all but silent, and Etienne saw in such silence the puissance that swept through his veins, the force behind his every small action. Sirius, he knew, understood that mute strength, though not as fully as Etienne did. And no one, not even Etienne himself, could ever know what moved in noiseless shadowplay along the backs of Remus's eyes. 

Perhaps, were she still alive, Dalila Lupin would have recognized each lash-silhouetted specter that ghosted through Remus's eyes. But Dalila Lupin was dead, and had left as her only legacy this boy-child, unsure of his actions but stronger than Atlas himself in them, the burden of such worlds as Remus had been forced to see and now wished never to comprehend carried without complaint upon the proud lines of his yet un-bent shoulders.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
**TRANSLATIONS**  
What...a good idea.  
I like this idea...I like it very much.  
But, when we kiss, I don't think...I speak words, but I don't listen to them.  
I'm not saying anything, but, maybe, I'm saying everything?  
But no, after, there would be no mystery.  
What a good idea.  
Yes?  
What?  
But, the money...  
I, I would like that...  
~*~  
Like that?  
Another time?  
With eyes closed.

  



	10. Chapter Nine: La Morsure du Bete

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**Chapter Nine: La Morsure du Bete  
What happens**: Ready for the Whomping Willow incident, anyone?  
**Main Characters**: Remus J. Lupin, Sirius Black  
**Subsidiary Characters**: James Potter, Lilly Evans, Peter Pettigrew; Severus Snape, Lucius Malfoy; Professor Voldemort, Professor McGonagall; Etienne Ibert; Hector Karnaugh (ooh! New character!)  
**Couples You Will Find In This Fic (Whether You Like It Or Not)**: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin; James Potter/Lilly Evans; Severus wanting Remus's body; a hint or two of Lucius Malfoy/Severus Snape; other relationships of both a homosexual and heterosexual nature  
**Dedication**: This chapter is dedicated not only to **all my reviewers**, as every chapter is, but in honor of a certain **dedicated** and **wonderful few** who **always, always** rock my **socks**. Firstly, to **Magical Me**, whose last review left me a** melting mass of overwhelmed pride**. Also, to **Emmy the Cat **once more, for all that you review was **perfection** and your **defense** of my fic was both **intelligent** and worthy of being **my knight in shining armor**, or something like that. Also to **Avalon**, who didn't review my latest chapter, but has review **every other chapter** so wonderfully that I feel I must give **proper credit** where **credit is due**. And everyone who has **emailed** me, **reviewed** my work faithfully or even once, sent me **pretty graphics** (yes, **Ana**, you know who **you** are) or even **cared** in the **slightest** -- it's all for **you**, people. My **reviewers**. Always. Keep **reviewing**! I **love** it. :D  
**This is**: **chapter nine** of a **work in progress**. Like all my **works in progress**, it is possible that you will be **waiting** a **very long time** between **installments**, or they could come out **daily** in a **psychotic** and rather **frightening** fashion. **Do Not Worry**! Just take it **as it comes**, and feel free to send me **demanding fan mail **(all **demanding fan mail** should be sent to **IremusJLupin@aol.com**) if you feel you've been waiting **an egregiously long time**. **Demanding fan mail** is **annoying** sometimes, but on the whole it makes me feel **incredibly cool**. And **that's what it's all about**, right? **Oh yes**. And I am also **constantly updating** **chapters** that have already been **uploaded**, whenever I find a **hideous spelling error** or a **problem with grammar**. So check back **often**.  
**C&C**: is **demanded**. Or, you know, **desperately longed for**, in a rather **pathetic **sense. Just gimme some of that **good ol' fashioned R&R**, and let me know you actually do want to **see more of my work**.  
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**Chapter IX: La Morsure du Bete**

The house was a chilling one, cold because every corner was so, cold as porcelain and mahogany and silk. Especially in winter, where the frigid winds crept along your flesh and gave you childish goosebumps in the night, the house -- the mansion, rather -- was like a house made of ice, buried in a frozen tundra, untouched by humanity for years. Though every inch, down to ever last corner, was engraved with rich detail and filled with expensive antiques, there was no comfort to be found in all the long, silent hallways, or in any of the ancient sculptures that loomed at you from walls. Every room was designed to make you know how expensive it had been. Every room was meant to isolate you from yourself, as well as from the rest of the world. 

The house was just as Severus's own, more of a marble tomb than a place to live or call your home. Between its walls were the velvet of lush couches, the silk of elegant cushions, the polished mahogany of desks and sweeping banisters and the marble of each headless, armless, helpless statue. There were no people living there -- rather, Septimus and Delphinia Malfoy were merely cheap replicas of the pieces of art they had chosen to decorate their mansion with: brittle, frigid, and without any soul.

So such a stay in the Malfoy residence was therefore no vacation, at least not in Severus's eyes. Once, in the time when Lucius's eyes had burned with a fire wrought of ice that could enchant, persuade, enrapture, it would have been heaven to have stayed there. Now, inch by inch, the blond was turning to stone, as if the great Medusa of his inheritance had reared her head before him, and he was at last powerless to protect himself. Vespasia and Cyril Snape were just the same as Delphinia and Septimus, uncaring, unfeeling, unmoved. Severus found he had no choice but to keep to himself or to the Malfoy's vast collection of untouched books, watching life move around him, watching the servants clean and the house elves scurry underfoot with a displaced lack of emotion that was not cruelty and was not enjoyment, something caught like a cobweb to linger in between the two. 

All in all, the place left him absolutely cold, which meant, he assumed, there was some hope for him yet. After all, if he continued to long for more, encourage the secret ache within his chest, then he was not lost to this way of life his family and his family's friends seemed to take great pride in. Severus had never embraced it. As time wore on, as they spoke of news from Voldemort and his followers intermittently with tales of disgrace and falls from power, Severus found himself to be disgusted with it. Above everything else, he wanted to break free, but had never placed enough store in himself to try and do so.

"We have had word from him only last month," Delphinia would to Vespasia over tea, trying to prove something with her long nose held high and her pinky in an arrogant hook, "from the South of France." With a little laugh, Vespasia would try to save face, tossing glossy black hair over one shoulder.

"Vacationing, is he?" she would query, still tittering to herself at some foolish joke. "How very like him, after all."

Their voices were like gold or silver, trying to outshine the other with glossy, cultured value. They were beautiful women, yes, but that was only half the game. The other was to one-up their tea companion with who knew whom better, who had more of what than the other, who had their claws sunk more tightly into the flesh of social life. 

Severus had grown sick of it, keeping to his room, though Lucius could often find him there, or the library, amidst the smell of dusty yet incredibly expensive books, none of them muggle authored. That was the only area in which the library was lacking, as if those muggle born wrote nothing of worth. _Think of Shakespeare_, Severus wanted to scream to them, _think of Faulkner, just _think_!_ But they weren't the sort of people who looked past the bridge of their own noses to the world beyond, judging everything relative to the basis of their own self-inflated self-importance. It was revolting, but ultimately, it was just pitiable.

But once he lost himself in a book, Severus could forget everything that haunted him from the outside world. It was glorious, how the play of words could ensnare him better than anything else, gloss over his skin, hide him away from all that he hated about his situation, his lack of family, his lack of friends. A truly good book could so transport him that he wouldn't hear anything, not even the incessant beating of his own heart, not even the steady rhythm of his own breaths. And once he blocked such things out, he was no longer himself, no longer Severus Snape, disliked in school, displaced even in his own home. He was whoever the book told him he was, everything dictated by the turning of the page.

"So _that's_ where you are." Lucius's voice, high and lilting and proud, oddly feminine for all his masculine, arrogant egoism. The slim body that dropped gracefully down to fold long legs at Severus's side, peer over his shoulder. "Reading about a war, how glumly like you."

"I," Severus said, but he faltered and shrugged faintly, snapping the book shut. It was a loud, decisive motion, perhaps more indicative of how much he wanted to shut everyone out than he had wanted it to be. Lucius frowned. He did even that delicately.

"So very antisocial, of course," he went on, that frown playing in his voice. "Mother was wondering what you're up to; so has yours."

"I'll be down for supper," Severus replied, his voice helpless, too helpless to be cold. They all had such conceit as Severus did not. They could manage to look down their noses at people, even by speaking a few words. It was a talent that Severus simply did not have the ego to master. 

"Yes, and then you'll be gone again. You're simply not entertaining at all. It would be so _easy_," Lucius continued, "to keep them from talking about your lack of proper sociability, if you just stopped rotting in the library for an hour or two each day."

_ So easy_, Severus thought, _but a far cry from what I want in life -- to fool people into thinking I'm one thing, then doing another behind closed doors._

And another, more nagging voice in Severus's head continued that thought, _just as Lucius does with you. He would never forfeit his place for anything of yours._

And the deepest part of it, rarely ever put to words, taunted him still, _you're never as important as social standing, not with anyone, especially not with _him_._

"It's easy for you," Severus said carefully, "but it never has been for me, and it never will." He tilted his face away. Lucius had a habit of drawing himself so, so close, a proximity he knew was always too close for comfort, one that got Severus agitated and nervous and gave Lucius always the upper hand, whenever they spoke, especially whenever they argued. Severus had never once in his life won an argument with Lucius Malfoy, nor did he ever expect to. It was one of the facts of life, that Severus lost, and Lucius won.

And still, Severus loved him, with a fierce adoration wrought of worship, which was itself born from knowing Lucius was all Severus could never be. He could tell himself a million, an eternity of times that he didn't want it, that he didn't want to please, that he didn't want to assuage pride or have any of his own. He could try and convince himself with all the workings of his mind that he would not grow so self-satisfied as to crush others under his feet without noticing once, simply because of his own power, his own respected and awe-inspiring place.

But the heart and the mind were two different things, and in the depths of him, Severus knew just what he wanted, and that involved never again being a disappointment to anyone. If he had as much confidence in all of him as Lucius had in his little finger, he would have perhaps been content. He was jealous by nature -- or, his nature had been cultivated since birth to be as such. It didn't matter, now, just as it didn't matter what Lucius had the potential to be as opposed to what he was now. What was, was, and Severus could not keep his mind from lingering on that shockingly pale face, beautiful in its cruelty, lovely in its powerful naivete. It was Lucius, and Severus was jealous of that, envious of all that he possessed now and would possess later, and hated him for all his control. Such three emotions were, in the unfortunate scheme of things, so very close to love that it was impossible, sometimes, to escape crossing the line from one into the other. Once you had crossed, it was also nearly impossible to cross back. 

Severus bowed his head, half in defeat, half to hide his face from the other boy. Lucius scowled deeper, sensing correctly that his friend's attention was no longer with him, and perhaps had not been since the very beginning of the conversation. 

"Severus." Lucius came a little closer, torturously close, knowing how hard it was for Severus to pull away, knowing how on edge it made him to have someone else invading the boundaries of his terribly important personal space. He was close to winning -- and he always won -- and felt strength surge in him at that knowledge. "Severus," he said again, and then a sly grin spread over his face with wicked rapidity, "Severus. Are you jealous?"

There was a chilling silence fitting to the scene in which Lucius felt against his fingers the wonderful totality of his own power. It was intoxicating, such overwhelming hubris, so close to being completely unjustified. 

_He thinks he owns me,_ Severus thought. A surge of resentment and indignance rose up within his throat like bile, but soon after it ebbed away weakly, slipping the sieve of his heart to leave him feeling ashen and worn. He had to fight off the urge to bow his head again -- canine, in its simplicity, the way a mere pup would show its submission to an elder, or the way a wolf would bow down before the dominant leader of the pack. _He thinks he own me because I have allowed him to treat me as his possession,_ Severus realized finally, _and where does the blame lie there? With his actions, or with mine?_

He had no answer for himself and, he realized suddenly, no answer for Lucius, either. While he could postpone the search for understanding within himself he could not postpone replying to Lucius Malfoy, for the blond would not accept such silence. He swallowed, feeling something stick hard and sharp in his throat as he did so.

"I'm not." He tried to make his own words sound anything more than what they were, weak and unconvincing. It was a half-hearted attempt, but at least he had made one. Lucius's eyes glittered terribly, and Severus shrunk under the look, reduced to a creature no bigger than a house-elf in the path of those clear blue eyes. Aryan, Severus noted, proud and noble but also malevolent, focused and drunk upon their own nobility.

"What are you jealous of, Severus?" The tone was mocking him, now, taunting with its lilting melody, teasing with its too-sweet song. If Lucius knew, he would laugh. Severus himself could not see clear to explaining himself and all that he desired so deeply to anyone, without causing their laughter.

_No,_ his mind told him, _no, that isn't true. You could tell Remus. Remus would understand._

The next thought came as a shock to him, a sucker-punch to the stomach, sudden and unexpected and completely unprecedented. _So you're jealous of Sirius Black, then?_ The voice in his head was just as much of a mockery of himself as Lucius's voice was. Severus felt a little dizzy as his head reeled with disbelief, the stunning moment of clarity that would no doubt disappear the moment he opened his mouth to speak.

"I'm not jealous of anyone." Those words served only as a blow to Lucius's pride. Again, his pale brow knit together as a frown pulled at his lips. His eyes focused darkly on Severus's sallow face, trying to search out the lie, as Severus felt the moment of understanding slip through his fingers as would the liquid laughter of water. The more he tightened his grasp, the more each trickle slid through his fingers, lost for the moment, and who knew how long it would be before he could gather them up again. Resentment filled him once more, and he fought to keep it at bay, tried not to hate the beautiful face before him despite how badly he wished to tear the smooth skin to shreds.

"And why shouldn't you be?" Lucius tilted his head to the side, his voice low and dangerous. There was something in Severus that told him he had nothing to fear, for all Lucius could say to him would be nothing he hadn't already used to punish himself. Every one of Lucius's words, each of his stinging attacks upon Severus's battered pride, should have no affect upon the supposedly weaker boy, for all that he had told himself such things time and time again. "After all, Severus -- what is there that you don't have cause to envy?" Lucius ran his fingers over the binding of Severus's Potions history book with the caress of a reptile before it opened its mouth wide and thus swallowed you whole, or wrapped its verdant body about you and crushed the breath from your lungs in the tightest of embraces. Possessive, almost, crazed by its desire for possession and poisoned by its search for power.

"All right." Severus admitted defeat in the argument but gave up no spoils. It was easy enough to let Lucius be the victor but if the victory was without any gain, perhaps the blond would have no choice but to let Severus alone. "I'm jealous." He could take minor pride in knowing that Lucius would never know of whom. He could build himself up on the knowledge that Lucius would assume it was himself -- and would puff up like a blowfish with such false security. Yes, there were times when all Severus wanted was to be the sole captor of all of Lucius's precious attention. But there were time like these, where resentment boiled into disgust within him, and he could not coat sweetly over it, for all his admiration and awe of the blond boy's strength. "But who isn't jealous of something?"   
  
The words sprang almost unbidden to his lips, but once they passed, Severus could not help but feel a surge of power equal to his surge of revulsion burn within him. It was a parting shot, one that would hit home, exactly as intended.

Although, he hadn't exactly intended it. The words had come out on instinct, or perhaps just impulse. Lucius was silent, eyes blazing with fire cold enough to burn, until he turned his gaze away, hands stilled on the binding of the heavy book in Severus's lap. Severus's heart pounded nervously, despite the power lent him by his sense of justice fed pride. At last, Lucius dropped his hand against Severus's thigh rather than the dusty book cover, looking towards him with a mixture of true respect along with sly amusement.

"You're quite full of surprises, after all," Lucius murmured, his voice irresistible as honey. "Lord Voldemort is right to seek your loyalty as avidly as he once sought mine." Severus's body grew cold as a statue, immobile as stone. To be wanted was one thing, one wonderfully desirable thing. To be wanted by one who was overpoweringly disagreeable, so much as to be beyond terrifying, was quite another thing entirely. All strength drained from Severus's limbs and he was left shocked, stunned, as Lucius closed his lips over Severus's earlobe and bit down upon the soft flesh. Whether it was to chastise or to mark his property, Severus could not discern, nor did he particularly want to. "I'll be hard pressed," Lucius went on, his breath hot against Severus's ear, "to share you with him, though I suppose I shall have to allow it, and learn I cannot _always_ have _everything_ I want."

A little thrill that seemed eerily like a shiver rocked down Severus's spine. It was the first time during the vacation that Lucius had touched him, and there was little doubt as to what was happening as Lucius tightened his fingers in a serpentine grasp around the ventricles of Severus's heart, and refused to ever have them loosen.

Despite all that had passed over the Christmas Break, nothing was significantly changed between Sirius and Remus when they returned from Rhondda and fell back into their usual routines: schoolwork, moments of fleeting but memorable privacy, schoolwork again, meals, privacy, and sleep. The only noticeable difference in their intimacy was that they had begun to share the same bad, Remus finding Sirius a comforting presence in the night, Sirius discovering that he simply couldn't sleep without Remus lying beside him. It was an unspoken arrangement, and after all the lights were out and the other Gryffindor boys had fallen asleep, either Sirius or Remus would slip out of bed and pad quietly over to the other, parting the curtains and entering without a word. Most often it was Sirius who would come to Remus's side, impatient and unwilling to wait for more than a few minutes before he made his way across the room and right back to that most comfortable place, with Remus caught up in his arms.

He never told the smaller boy about what his brothers had said, and was careful to make sure James knew never to speak of what he knew to his parents, on the chance that it might accidentally be passed on to Orion or, worse, Michael and Sean. It was easy enough to keep this a secret from the rest of his family, for he was not lying to them, merely obscuring, or shadowing, a piece of the truth. Yes, Remus was his best friend and yes, they spent a good deal of time together.

Sirius just never chose to tell his family exactly what it was they were doing, in that time. But he never once had to lie, and that was what kept it easy. Sometimes, when he found he could not sleep, and his mind was hazy with warmth in his bed with Remus in his arms, he would feel a stab, or a clutch, of deeply rooted guilt, admitting as he lowered his defenses towards sleep the misery he felt at such a betrayal, both on his brothers' part, and on his own. Never once had he imagined such prejudice, though as he thought about it later, he knew he should have realized. After all, it wasn't exactly common, at least not in his town, and he knew now from experience that what was not common was most often looked upon with fear, uncertainty, and disgust. 

Of all his friends Sirius told only James what he had overheard by the fireside that night, and his friend listened in solemn silence to the whole story before he shook his head and bowed it.

"That's the way a lot of people are," he said, and then there was a long silence, in which he fought some internal struggle. Sirius watched him and knew then more than ever which one of them was the hero, which one of them was the greater spirit, which one of them deserved everything the vast world had to give. It made him feel more proud, this time, than jealous, and he wondered if perhaps he might be growing up just a little. At last, James spoke again. "I'm sorry, Sirius." Nothing else was said. For a long time after, Sirius was left to wonder what James had meant by those three soft, curt words. For a long time after, he failed to understand it.

Other than the words of Sirius's brothers there was nothing to haunt him, and the short winter days passed quickly with the heavy snow. Remus went to the willow for the nights of the full moon and Sirius would stay awake all night, worried, pained, pacing the floor of the Gryffindor Common Room with his jaw clenched tight. In the morning, he would be in the Infirmary before Madam Pomfrey could arrive, waiting for Remus's return. There were certain routines they fell into, simple and reliable, so that Remus always knew he would wake to a pain tempered and finally diluted by Sirius's presence. It was comfortable and pleasant, to have the wounds the wolf inflicted soothed away by Sirius's fumbling but gentle words and guarding, protective company. While it did not make such nights bearable it did water down the despair a little, so that the sunrise was something to look forward to, even in the dead of bloody night. 

A change Remus did note was one in Sewerus Snape, for after break was over they were paired to work together in Potions by Professor Hemlock, who obviously hoped that some of Severus's natural talent for the class could be imparted to the yet-reluctant Remus. While the dark-haired Slytherin had for a long time been withdrawn, the difference in him now was that it was almost impossible to reach him, his eyes dark and turned somewhere inside, his face caught up in a projection of some inner turmoil that flickered away once Remus tried to focus on it. Severus's face was like a mask, and Remus found it above all else intriguing, deep corners of his mind recognizing the looks from his own features, and finding himself more than just curious about what they represented. Their own friendship had been changed, for Severus had grown quieter, as if he were tiptoeing along the edge of a terrible chasm, into which he could at any moment fall, and he said little to nothing at all, even during their study sessions in the library, and Remus assumed at first that it had to do somehow with the inevitably powerful Lucius Malfoy. Once he saw the two interact, unnoticed, in the hallway, he did not merely assume, but rather, he knew. The amused stance of Lucius's body, the subservient one of Severus's. Like two wolves, Remus concluded, a weaker one who gave up all his kills and his pride to feed the ego of the more dominant pack leader. Seeing such things made Remus feel a little sick, and it put him for the first time in his life towards the objective of drawing conversation out of someone else, rather than having someone else draw the conversation out of him.

"You're not paying attention," Severus said one night during yet another furtive meeting, in which they were going over the failure of Remus's latest potions project. "If you're careless, it isn't going to work." It was the first time Severus had spoken, other than to give directions, the entire night. Remus looked up, eyes caught in the candlelight, serious and apologetic, gold lacing the brown.

"I'm trying," he promised, "honestly. There's something about Potions that I" He trailed off. Severus had that look on his face, only this time, his eyes were on Remus, as if he was half watching, half lost in thought. Remus coughed. "Severus?" The Slytherin boy blinked, and then shook his head a little.

"Sorry," he apologized, "I suppose I'm not paying attention, either." Remus let silence fall as he desperately scraped around for something fitting to say, feeling wild and helpless. 

"Perhaps," he attempted, "we're both tired?" It would have been easy, Severus realized, to take that as an excuse to end their studying and return to his own bed, where things would not be so awkward, and his mind would not be so confused. But then, there was always the possibility that Lucius had waited up for him. And he never knew, lately, whether he should enjoy the blond's company, or dread it. 

"Perhaps," Severus replied carefully, "but there's only a little while longer to go. We can get through it, don't you think?" Remus rubbed the bridge of his nose and turned back to his notes. Once, they would have made perfect sense to him, and he wouldn't have to be up two hours later than necessary, going over and over the ingredients for the potion he'd ruined. 

Again.

"I think so," he agreed, flashing a half-smile and puffing out a weak little sigh. "After all, there isn't any other time to do it over, except for tomorrow night, and by then I'll have ruined tomorrow's potion, so we'll only have double the work to do then. No, we might as well work it out now and get it over with."

"You're not that bad," Severus protested, his dark eyes truthful, "really. You have the potential, it's just that" He looked away, and then turned back to him, lips in a tight but wry line, "I think you really don't want to do it. You used to be one of the best in the class, but ever since" He didn't finish his sentence. Remus's hands fell still in his lap, his entire body rigid. "Sorry," Severus said, for the second time that conversation, "I didn't mean to bring him up."

"It's all right," Remus said quickly, knowing the last thing Severus needed at the moment was another reason to apologize. "You're right. You're ­- you're completely right. You don't have to apologize."

"Mm," Severus said, nodding, "I thought so. If you just put your heart to it, as opposed to your mind, then we wouldn't have any trouble at all."

"Now," Remus replied, "I suppose it's my turn to apologize? For causing you all this extra work, that is," he continued, shrugging weakly. "I'm just -­ I can't. I try to -­ really. But ­- I can't."

"There's not much you can't do," Severus murmured, "so, I suppose, I should feel proud that the one area in which you fall very close to failing is one in which I happen to excel." He attempted a smile. It was wider than most of Remus's, but that wasn't saying much.

"And I should be grateful." Remus ran his fingers nervously through his hair. "That I have the best student in the class as my partner. Professor Hemlock must have thought that your skills would cancel out my clumsiness, and instead of blowing the classroom into the sky, we'd merely do a mediocre job of things." Autumn-gold strands caught the flickering of the candlelight and shimmered, more pure than the pale color of Lucius's own locks. Severus turned his eyes away.

"We'll work it out," he said noncommittally. "You're not that bad, and I'm not that good."

"That quite an understatement," Remus murmured in return, feeling the attention on the conversation slipping, feeling Severus fade away into that other world. That must be just how I was, Remus thought to himself, then amended it, just how I am. He winced. 

"Perhaps we should give up, for now," Severus said suddenly, softly, "I'm not sure either of us are paying adequate attention, and if you're tired- "

"No," Remus said, "I'm not. But if you are--"

"No," Severus cut in, "I--"

"Oh," Remus said. They met each other's eyes, and a few moments of choppy silence passed. Then, quite suddenly, there was the glimmer of a sparkle to be seen in the depths of Severus's dark, unreadable eyes, an equal spark catching fire in Remus's own. They kept that gaze locked together and, as if on simultaneous cue, they both began to laugh, both sounds rusty and unused but equally relieved. Remus felt all the tension in him fade away until he was almost as relaxed as he was with Sirius by his side, just Sirius and only Sirius, and Severus felt more comfortable and calm than he had ever before in his life. The laughter did not die out, but swelled for a moment longer, like the sweeping curve of a wave, until finally in ebbed and faded upon their lips. Severus rubbed his own cheek absently, feeling the smile still tugging upon the muscles of his jaw and chin. He had not laughed in what felt like years, and found he was speechless to it, watching Remus's face thoughtfully, with as much pleasure as he took from reading each line of poetry in one of his favorite books. Remus, too, could not speak, but for a different reason. He had used up enough strength in talking as much as he had and laughing as long as he did to leave him without any courage left to part his lips and let the words come. And there was the fondest look upon Severus's softened face that Remus failed to understand, and he was intent upon discovering what it meant. 

In this pleasant confusion, where everything was sated as the belly of a full, old dog, where everything was all caught up in that look on Severus's face, and the air still echoed tangibly to the sound of their previous laughter, the door to the library was opened and shut, but they did not hear it. Severus had leaned forward a little, head tilted to the side, studying something. There were footsteps on the ground, and Remus could scent something familiar on the air. Suddenly familiar, too familiar, heightened senses understanding but his body somehow not reacting.

It was only when Sirius coughed loudly that Remus found he could turn his head, his eyes and his expression blank, his body tensed and unsure. There had been something about that look in Severus's eyes that suggested something, even to Remus, though he did not know what it was. They had just been studying, working over an extra assignment upon the failure of their last one. 

But there was also something about the look in Sirius's eyes that suggested he didn't think so. That look was what clicked in Remus's senses, which knew Sirius and Sirius's emotions better than he knew his own, and Remus knew something was very wrong. It was a hurt in the cobalt blue that ached, an accusation that stung, a fear that was strong enough and terrible enough to cut through steel and crumble mountains beneath its force. An avalanche of betrayal, soundless but screeching upon the air's lack of sound.

For a while, no one breathed.

"So," Sirius said finally, his voice kept cold and clipped, "James told me you'd be studying here. But he seemed to be misinformed in thinking you'd be alone."

That night was the first time since Christmas Break that Remus and Sirius slept in separate beds. It was impossible for one to find rest without the other, but Sirius's wounded pride and Remus's inability to completely uncover what it was that had wounded said pride kept each from making the first move. They hadn't talked as they returned to Gryffindor common room, hadn't exchanged glances or even 'good night's as they slipped into their respective beds, and once they had each gotten under the covers they lay awake, wondering and insecure as their minds wandered towards the unsafe territory of possibility.

_He had been laughing,_ Sirius thought to himself, _laughing with _Severus Snape_, of all people!_

It had always taken everything Sirius had in him just to make Remus smile, but there he was, laughing with Severus as if he didn't have a single care in the world, his eyes sparkling with that wonderful, delighted sparkle that Sirius longed so badly to inspire. He'd only done it once or twice and it galled him impossibly to see that of all people, Severus Snape, disliked for obvious reasons, antisocial and impossible and all around awful, was laughing, with Remus. With Sirius's Remus.

When, Sirius wondered, had he started thinking of Remus as his own? It only made sense, after all. And he would have thought ­ would have loved it ­ if Remus thought of him the same way. All that Sirius had, he would gladly give to Remus in a heartbeat. And he had tried so hard and for so long to make him laugh with that same ease he had shown just an hour ago in the library.

Sirius's anger came, he knew immediately, from hurt. But he couldn't say anything, for it words it seemed so simple, so petty, so childish. It would   
be pointless to explain it to Remus, who would blink his golden eyes and shake his tousled head and explain it all away so easily and with such charm that Sirius would inevitably forget why it was he'd been so hurt in the first place. But this, no matter how much he wanted it to be, wasn't something he could just forget. Something needed to be done about it. Something needed to be done to keep Remus from laughing like that with Severus, ever again.

Sirius just didn't know what.

But, he realized, he had the rest of the night left to him to figure it out. He'd come up with complicated plans with James before, had thought of some of the best pranks in Hogwarts history. So this should be no problem. All he had to do was get the greasy Slytherin boy away from Remus, for good.

Remus's bed was just as cold with the still hush of night and the chill of the ebbing winter as Sirius's was. What with memory of the previous events and the bitter cut of confusion, beneath which Remus knew everything that had happened was most definitely his fault, guilt had crawled into Remus's heart, and was making itself comfortable there, ready to spend the night even though Sirius would not.

All right, Remus had admitted, there were a lot of things he didn't understand about a lot of people. He had always known that, knew it now all too well. It was the simple reason why he didn't fit in appropriately anywhere, besides in Sirius's arms, and that was why he was suddenly so disoriented. He had, or at least he had thought he had, always understood Sirius, and therefore why he did certain things, which was why he was always so comfortable around the other boy, so at ease with both their actions and motives. Therefore, the agonizing silence he was receiving was for the most part unexplained, and for all that he was lacking all the necessary information for simple understanding, Remus didn't know what to do, or how to go about fixing the mess he had made. Remus had to figure out something that was obviously more than a simple betrayal Sirius felt over childhood rivalries, as well as the deeply engrained competition between Slytherin and Gryffindor that Sirius loved to cultivate. No, there wouldn't have been that bruised look in Sirius's eyes, nor that wounded expression he might have worn had Remus actually, physically stabbed him in the back, if the betrayal he felt had been something so simple as that. There wouldn't have been such pain, there wouldn't have been such accusation.

Just remembering that look in Sirius's eyes when they turned on him made Remus's gut clench. He remembered suddenly with the faint, green tinge of sickness the big dinner he had had, followed by the even bigger desert of chocolate mud cake afterwards. The cake had seemed at the time to be a confectioner's heaven, but it was now threatening to leave his stomach in a sudden, twisting onslaught of remorseful nausea. He closed his eyes tight, pressed his fingertips against his palms, and tried to keep his breathing steady. Beneath that, he felt the deep desire to listen in the silence of the room, to hear if he could catch the sounds of Sirius's rhythmic breath upon the air. Perhaps, that rhythm would give him some clue as to what it was he had done so injuriously, and why it was this was such an emotional blow to Sirius's expectations.

_I'm sorry,_ he thought miserably as he clutched his pillow tightly against him, _but I don't know how to make it right._

And that was the source and the culmination of his misery: his utter inability to rectify the situation, and the overwhelming helplessness he suddenly felt in the face of losing Sirius Black.

Severus had been expecting a confrontation from Sirius Black for four days before it came, so that his time of preparedness had ended and it took him completely by surprise, despite how ready for it he had been in the beginning. 

"Snape." The realization of what that clipped voice was calling him to settled over Severus's chest like a shroud, his body feeling icy, as a tomb might. It would have been outstandingly pathetic, however, to let the shiver than ran through him at the sound of that voice show, so instead he steeled himself to whatever blows would come, adopting the dignity he was only just now beginning to develop. He felt it smooth over him, a sweet, cool calm that was sort of like a poker face, if you thought about it metaphorically, revealing no cards he might potentially have had up his sleeve.

"Black." His voice, too, was commendable, and he let the little trickle of confidence that dripped into his veins turn into a tidal wave, something strong enough to carry him through. "What is it?" Granted, he despised the way he sounded, self-satisfied, self-promoting. But it was the only way he could get through this with his spirit in tact. Some things, he had learned, needed to be forfeited for other, larger purposes.

"Thought you might like to talk a little. That's all." Sirius's tones, which were always suffused with some sort of fiery rage, was the exact opposite of Severus's own. They were human, so painfully real, and it was hard not to admire or even covet their bravery, their outspoken strength. "Just some things I thought maybe, you might like to talk about." Severus held his ground, though his curiosity had been sparked aflame.

"I don't know what we could possibly have to discuss," he replied guardedly, finally looking up at Sirius's face, the boy being a good inch or so taller than he. He looked tired, as if he hadn't been getting much sleep, but still, he seemed a force to be reckoned with, proud and strong and above all, utterly determined.

"A damn lot of things, I should think," Sirius retorted hotly, clamping a hand down on Severus's shoulder, "and here'n'now's a better time than any, 'cause it's here'n'now." The rest of the students had filed out of the classroom and even Professor McGonagall was nowhere to be seen, so that there was no getting out of it, no way to go but headfirst. Severus swallowed, hoping he didn't look as nervous as he felt.

"All right," he said casually, setting his bag down on a desk and leaning against it in what he decided finally was a nonchalant pose, "if you have something to say, I can't keep you from saying it, after all." Sirius snorted softly, suddenly not able to meet his eyes, his hands clenching and unclenching into fists. It seemed to Severus that he was chased, plagued by some inner torment, which had dogged at his heels for a while, now. No doubt it had been there ever since that night more than half a week before, in the library. Severus tried not to feel smug. Rather, he tried only to look it.

"Just," Sirius said, his knuckles white, "thought there were some things you should know. 'Bout Remus. Before you go getting really friendly, just thought there were some important things." Severus gave him nothing, only silence. Sirius swallowed, breathed deeply, and went on. "When he's gone every month. You can't really - be his friend, you know, can't get close, unless you know where." The whites of Sirius's eyes were also very white, the blue equally very blue. He was a vivid sort of person, filled with deep colors and passion just as deep. 

"It's not any of my business," Severus replied, but he knew by the look in Sirius's eyes that it was, and he knew by the pounding of his own heart that he had to know.

"It's very much your business," Sirius said, his voice low and resigned. He had set himself towards whatever goal it was he had been considering, knowing that there was no other way, knowing that there would be great sacrifices and hoping the result would be worth it. "It's very much your business," he repeated, "but I don't think it's my place to tell you. I think it's your place - to see for yourself." Severus watched the resolute face, gray and pale beneath its tan. A long silence passed, and Severus was forced to break it.

"Oh?" he asked. He sounded, he realized, very week, but there was nothing he could do about it now. Sirius turned back to him, eyes trapped as a wild beast's.

"Tomorrow night," Sirius said, "it's the full moon." His eyes flickered towards the window nervously, then pulled back to focus once more on Severus's face, intent and forceful. There was no looking away from those eyes. "Go down to the Whomping Willow after supper and tap the knot at the base of the tree with anything long you can find. A pole. A branch. Anything." Sirius licked his lips. In the depths of him, where his thoughts were not blinded by the despair of his heart, he knew what he was doing was, to be completely frank, wrong. But he couldn't stop now. He had made up his mind. There was nowhere else to go but forward, and it would only pain him further to start looking back. "You only have to follow the tunnel," he finished, tossing his hair over one shoulder as if he hadn't a care in the world, "that's all. You'll see." He didn't wait for Severus to respond, but turned instead to go, his back to Severus, a blind eye turned to what he had just done.

There was nothing to it, he assured himself, but to go forward.

Severus was left alone in the room, silent, unsure. Tomorrow night, he told himself, a full moon. The Whomping Willow. For a moment, he debated, wondered whether or not he was going to go. It could be a trap; it could have been Sirius setting some sort of prank into motion for his idea of justified 'revenge' when Severus hadn't even done anything. He didn't wonder for long. Prank or no, the way his heart was beating, the way every wondering thought that had ever passed through his mind over Remus Lupin, only pointed towards one direction, the only direction, he could take.

Tomorrow night, at the Whomping Willow.

Severus gathered up his bag and his books and went on his way, and there was no sign of Sirius in the empty halls, his only accompaniment the struggling of his heart against his ribcage.

"I did something stupid," Sirius whispered, his face drawn and pale. Outside, the sun was setting, and Sirius knew what it would give way to. The all seeing eye of the full moon, gazing down from the velveteen sky, would rise to reign over all that lay beneath it in a matter of minutes. Remus had been absent all day, and Sirius found himself watching the spaces where he was not, missing, hoping, and allowing guilt to finally take its toll upon him. 

"Well," James snorted softly, not looking up from his homework, "so what's new?" Lilly laughed softly, hiding the sound behind her hand, as she leaned over James's shoulder to read a few lines from the book he had commandeered.

"No," Sirius said, "I did something really stupid." There must have been something in the tone of his voice, hushed and almost tremulous, weak at the onslaught of his own heavy conscience, that made the other three look up all at once. As if his words pleaded with them, begged them to take him seriously. The moment James saw his drawn face he knew something was wrong; Sirius had been quiet all day but he had assumed it was Remus's absence that had caused his other friend to withdraw. Now, he saw it was something worse, something that could only be described as truly great. James's eyes narrowed.

"Sirius?" he asked cautiously. "What did you do?"

Severus stepped out into the darkness, cloak wrapped tight around him. Before him stretched the night, grass cool beneath him, wind cool around him, the darkness sweet but the tinge of the unknown that waited for him filled him with apprehension, and he held his breath in bated fear. Everything was a shadow; he was a shadow; the trees were many shadows; everything a shadow that cast another shadow, and another, and another, until it faded into blackness, and the world succumbed to the dark.

He secured his cloak around his neck, shaking his shoulders, and brace himself against the shiver of night as it ran down the center of his back.

"You _what_?" The words were loud, demanding, as only Lilly Evans could make them, piercing right into Sirius's brain. Sirius winced.

"You heard me," he muttered softly, scuffing his foot on the floor, unable to meet anyone's eyes, though he felt all other eyes focused, burning, upon him. It was hard not to wince again, hard not to try and find a crack in the floor to fall through. He waited, for only a moment more, for all hell to break loose.

"You're actually not joking?!" James's voice was incredulous, raised to a level just slightly under a shout. He was shocked, too shocked so far to feel anything yet, but he knew whatever it was he should be feeling had a lot to do with anger, and so he opted for reprimand to start with. Later on, he'd simply have to kill him. "You actually _told_ Severus Snape, of all people, to-- to-- to--!" He found he was shaking too hard with disbelief and sudden, protective rage to say anything else, and merely stood there, book overturned on the floor beside him, with his face white and his pupils dilated.

"No!" Sirius yelled back, half-heartedly trying to go on the offensive, for defense was a position in which he despised being put, "why would I joke about something like that?"

"I don't know!" James returned, eyes flashing as he refused to let Sirius gain the upper hand, "why the _hell_ would you be _serious_ about it?" Lilly, moving behind James, nodded once, firmly, her emerald eyes just as accusatory and demanding as James's were, only scarier, because she was a girl.

"You don't understand," Sirius said miserably, forced to back down again, "it's just-- I--"

"So _help_ us, Sirius," James interrupted coldly, "help us to understand _why_ you of all people would -- could! -- betray Remus, this way." Outside the had disappeared over the low edge of the horizon, its fire gone from the once sizzling air.

Lying a few feet out of the Whomping Willow's range was a long, gnarled branch, just perfect for Severus's intentions. He hesitated, looking all around him, and then lifted it, putting his weight behind it, and then searching out the knot of which Sirius had spoken. There was the strangest feeling in the air as he hit it, and the thrashing boughs of the great willow tree stilled, frozen, as if submerged in ice.

Severus dropped the branch hastily, and made for the passageway, darker black on black, a deeper secret on this night full of mysteries.

"They were there," Sirius said helplessly, "together, in the library. Laughing! Do you know how hard you have to try to make Remus laugh -- how hard _I_ have to try to make him laugh? He never even -- never even smiles, usually, unless I -- and it wasn't the same! It was like, like they both understood each other, in a way no one else could! I didn't even know they were there and they were laughing, he was smiling so bright, I didn't know what to do but -- but to" Sirius trailed off. Again, all eyes were on him, making him feel, no doubt deservedly so, as if he were two feet tall. He closed his eyes, his throat feeling dry, his hands at once sweaty and freezing cold. A little shiver ran through him, and he thought somewhere on the wind outside he could hear a hoot-owl shriek. "Well," he went on suddenly, crying out sharply enough to make the other three jump, "I didn't know what else to do! I can't lose him, not to that bloody Snape, not to _anyone_!" There was again silence, heavy enough to drown you. Sirius felt trapped, wronged by his own actions, helpless to do anything at all to fix the mess he'd made. He choked back a cry of anguish and fought to stay calm.

"You know what you've done." James broke the silence first, his voice collected, more thoughtful than outraged, more dismayed than accusing. "You've given practically given his secret away, to a Slytherin, no less. Sirius, oh, God, Sirius -- why couldn't you have just thrown a couple of punches and then have been done with it? Why this?"

"A couple of punches wouldn't have worked," Sirius said dully, the life drained out of his eyes, "it wouldn't have done it. It's -- you know Snape," Sirius went on, desperate, "he wouldn't stick around Remus if he saw -- if he knew that"

"That what?" Lilly's voice was colder than James's, almost scornful, though Sirius thought he could detect the bitter hint of pity in it, as well. "That Remus is a 'freak of nature' or something like that? That he isn't normal? Is that what you wanted -- to give Severus Snape, of all people, the knowledge to make Remus's life miserable and keep him from--"

"Lilly," James interrupted, and touched her forearm. She fell silent, caught by something in his eyes. The light, somber blue were filled with adulthood, with pain, and turned inwards upon himself, searching. "Oh," James said suddenly, "oh God, what if--"

"What?" It was the first time Peter had spoken during the entire exchange. Where he had been silent, keeping to his own corner, watching every emotion play itself out as in a theater production, now he was standing, sandy blond hair obscuring his pale eyes, keeping his purpose and intent shadowy, unclear. "What if what?"

"Severus," James whispered, the blood draining from his face, "what if -- Remus is a werewolf, and Severus doesn't _know_ -- he's walking in there blind, Remus could--"

"Kill him," Peter finished off gravely. For the first time the realization of such a repercussion found its way first into Sirius's mind, then into his gut. He was struck sightless, all sounds fading from the room, a blur passing before his eyes and filling his mind so that only Peter's words registered in his senses. Not one life, but two, could be ruined in the Shrieking Shack that night. Silence settled thickly over the room once more, strong enough to suffocate, filled with foreboding threat.

"Oh God," Sirius said finally, his voice choked, sounding distant and far away, "what have I done?"

It was a long, dark passage, dark as Severus's thoughts, and the earth around him was moist, smelling as sweet as the air had, before. It was, despite his natural, human instincts, and the nervousness of his pounding heart, something that would have been under other circumstances quite pleasant. He felt roots catch at his hair, tug at his robes, and kept his eyes fixed before him, waiting for that pinprick of light he knew must always come at the end of any tunnel, no matter how long, no matter how dark, no matter how tight. Dirt crept under his fingernails and one single bead of sweat ran down his forehead, blurring the vision of his left eye.

He kept on. Once you had gone for at least a minute into a tunnel, there was to be no turning back. It was now just a matter of when he would first catch sight of the light ahead.

  
  
"You know bloody well what you've done," Lilly shot at him, words meant as weapons, finding their mark easily all throughout Sirius's guilt-weakened sensitivity. He cringed, wishing he could curl up, wishing for the first time in his life to know any sort of spell that would work towards invisibility. "You'd just best hope there's a way to fix it, _if_ there's a way to fix it--"

"How can we fix it?" Peter's voice was flat, point-blank, devastatingly honest. "There's no way to fix it. There's nothing _to_ fix. It's too late now." He turned towards the window, words echoing like the tolling of a death bell. "See? The moon's full. Night's already fallen." Nothing could be said to that. All four of them stared towards the window and were silent, breathless, hearts beating too fast and too wildly, a caged butterfly, a creature trapped behind bars. Insecurity filled the room. There was, as Peter had said, nothing to be done, nothing to be said, no way to make this right. Too much damage had already been caused. It was already too late, too late before they had even tried.

It was a defeat James Potter refused to accept.

"All right," he said, "I'm going." And before anyone could stop him he had pushed passed Sirius's immobile, stunned form, and had gone out the doorway with a swish of robes and a slamming of wood against wood. The fire in the Common Room's hearth flickered with the gust of a sudden wind that came from the throwing open and slamming shut of the door.

"You'd best hope," Lilly said, her voice dark and unrelenting, "that James can do something about this. You'd best hope," she repeated, and then all was silent, left to the imagination, and the looming of a barren, lonely world that lay ahead. 

  
  
James had never run so fast or so hard in all his life. The chill night wind cut into his face, slicing over his cheeks, and his breath streamed out white upon the frosty air, leaving little trails of condensation behind him. Already, his palms felt cold, and all his stomach felt as if it were jumping to his throat. Something had to be done, he knew that, and he was suddenly the one to do it.

The power was overwhelming, and though he did feel it surge pleasantly through him, he felt also the heavy weight of responsibility settle over his shoulders. In time, such responsibility could drag you down, just as such power could undo you piece by piece. He didn't know whether or not he liked it, but bent his head to the wind and forced his muscles onward as his feet slapped the winter-frozen ground. It had not snowed in a while. The air felt pregnant, thick. He felt hot, as if it had suddenly become very humid all around him.

Before him, the Whomping Willow rose up as if it were some great magical creature awaiting him, a dragon perhaps, though frozen still as a statue.

_ Please,_ he prayed to no one at all, not believing such a request would make any difference, anyway, _please, just give me enough time._

When at last Snape came out into the light it was faded, sunken, and it took his eyes a moment to get used to being able to see once again. The tunnel had been long and dark and the earth around him crumbly, so that he shook dirt from himself as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the weakened light around him.

Beneath him was a wooden floor, rough but speaking pleasantly of tamed things, human things. He ran his fingers through his hair, smoothing himself out, feeling rather at a loss. There were no further directions he remembered that he could follow, and it seemed to him that he was alone in this crudely made, unfurnished room, the silence more deafening than a roaring cacophony of sound. Then he heard the sound of a wolf howl, too close for comfort. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled, then stood on end.

His attention was drawn to a flimsy looking staircase before him. There was nowhere to go but up, now, for he had already come this far. The howl of the wolf on the air told him as a portent might that he had come almost to the end of his journey, whatever it might be. 

The first step creaked out painedly as he began to mount them.

Over the Gryffindor Common Room a tense, miserable silence had stretched itself, thick, suffocating. It seemed too hot, though the fire had gone out. Peter was, he felt, for once a part of the excitement, or the despair, or the combination of both. Sirius was still despite his overwhelmingly impatient nervousness. Lilly was scowling in all directions around herself, a glare that could have killed a fully grown horse. There was nothing to alleviate the silence besides the occasional, long breath drawn in.

And then there was the sound of a hoot owl again, weak and far away but carried full over the pregnant air, coming easily to Sirius's ears.

And then he was moving towards the door, Lilly and Peter moving after him, orchestrated by a conductor far away, moving to a music of instinct they did not understand.

"I can't take it any more," Sirius said, and the door slammed shut behind them again, echoing jarringly through the halls as they broke into a run.

It was slow going, crawling on his hands and knees, where roots snatched out at him as if to hinder his process and dirt got into his nose and sweat into his eyes and heat flooded his body. It was slow and cramped, and yet necessity forced him onwards so that there was no time to catch his breath, each one coming ragged and loud in the stifling earth. His wand was digging into his stomach, having come loose from its usual place hidden in his sleeve. Somehow, though, that discomfort proved simply to comfort him, for he knew he was not helpless, knew that once he got through the trapping womb of the tunnel he would be out into the light, where there would be _something_ he could do.

Before him, the slightest pinprick of light. Beneath him, a stone cut shallowly along his arm. He hissed softly in pain and doubled his speed and efforts, fists clenched so tight he might have sworn his palms were bleeding. 

There was a heavy feeling of foreboding in Severus's gut, clenching, twisting. But his feet were moving forward without his knowledge, without his acquiescence. There was nothing to do but go forward. Nothing to do but progress. Nothing to do but see what it was Sirius had been so intent upon him seeing.

Even though there was the oddest smell of blood and anger in the air, if anger had a smell. Anger must have a smell -- anger smelled just like this. Coppery, bruised, bitter. Hungry. Intent. Vengeful. Severus swallowed.

Halfway up the stairs, now. Halfway up, not halfway down. Halfway more to go.

He heard the wolf howl again.

The air smelled not like anger, not like blood. It smelled like a wolf's howl.

Sirius's hair was in his eyes but the night was dark enough that he couldn't see anything anyway, not the roots that tripped him, not the branches from every small, bare sapling that he crashed into, not the rocks that gouged into the soles of his sneakers and made his breath catch in pain. Above him, the moon watched in passive quiet, nothing soft or beautiful about it, a haunting, ghostly orb of gray speckled white. It was maliciously beautiful, ravishingly cruel. It was watching, and were it the sort of inevitable presence that could laugh, it would be.

Maybe, it was laughing in the twinkling of all the bright stars, blinking on and off and on and off in the blackness of the vast sky.

_ Don't let James be too late,_ he begged, but he wasn't begging the moon, _he's better at this sort of hero thing than anyone. Don't let James be too late. Please._

Behind him he could hear the sound of Lilly and Peter breathing heavily, crashing into the same branches, stumbling over the same roots and rocks, feeling the same helplessness beneath the potency of the night sky. His gut ached both with how fast he was running and how terrified he was.

_ C'mon, James,_ Lilly thought, closing her eyes and plunging onward, moonlight catching in the fire-orange of her hair, _c'mon. Just -- c'mon._

Peter, half a step behind her, with his legs shorter and less graceful, felt a branch slap into his forehead and barely had the presence of mind to wince. All he could see was the shimmer of Lilly's hair before him; that was all he was following.

_ It really is,_ he thought to himself, _a beautiful night._

It was the light that threw James off, not the darkness. He blinked rapidly behind his glasses, eyes desperate for focus, lashes trembling with each heaving breath he took. The setting was just an empty room, floorboards rough-hewn wood. It was old, dusty in some places but well-worn in others.

And across the room was a staircase, each flat step weak, strained. From the looks of it, it had been used too recently for dust to have settled over the wood.

The top of the staircase was bathed in shadow but it was easy to see, if you were looking hard enough, the door ajar, the slice of light that pressed through the crack. It was easy to feel something in the air emanating from behind that door, coming from the room behind it, and whatever that room held. It was a something James didn't like, couldn't like, an omen of something that would happen in mere seconds.

James bounded forward, taking the steps three at a time, giving his lungs no time to recover and ignoring the protest in his limbs at the sudden motion. Beneath him the steps cried out, grinding against one another, and the soles of his feet rebelled, aching with the renewed weight pressed upon them. Something like adrenaline rushed through his body. Three steps down. Something white flashed behind his eyes, like power in his veins, unstoppable and uncontrollable and chilling. Three more steps down. Less than halfway to go. So this was what it was like to be strong. So this was what it was like to know you could do anything, anything you wanted, anything you put your mind to.   
  
If he only wasn't too late.

The wolf was howling not two feet from Severus's frozen body, teeth bared. In the wolf's eyes was an understanding Severus recognized easily but refused to place. Severus himself was blinded, body unable to move, unable to feel.

_ What is it?_

But it was a wolf, simple as that, russet colored fur and mud colored eyes, pearly as a wet snail shell, teeth white as the color of the moon, and just as powerful.

And the question was not _what_, but rather _who._

Who is it?

But he found he couldn't bear to answer himself, couldn't feel enough to think, could only let shock filter over him and bind each limb to statuesque stiffness.

  
  
Under Sirius's nails chunks of dirt were dug up, tossed behind, filtering once or twice against Lily's nose. She barely had time to notice it. In front of her she could hear Sirius's heavy breathing. Behind her, it was hard to even tell if Peter was still there, save for the occasional time his fingers brushed over her ankle, and she prayed it was her friend rather than some small creature that was living in this passage made entirely of hollowed out earth.

Sirius gritted his teeth and dragged himself onward, sweat flushing over his cheeks and forehead, blinding what limited vision he had. He felt a root catch on his shirt and tear.

Small things such as that didn't seem to matter, anymore.

It all happened very fast.

Because the wolf was going to jump, coiled muscles tensing, body readying itself, eyes glinting with expectation and triumph and _blood at last._ Because the wolf was big though it was young, angry though it was still a child, terrifying for all its past torment. 

Severus opened his mouth to say something, perhaps to cry out, perhaps so that he would not find total silence in the embrace of wolf paws, in the caress of wolf claws.

"_Petrificus Totalus!_" It wasn't Severus's voice that indeed cried out, but another, one he barely recognized over his terror, one that was changed with the power of the spell it wielded and the resolution it had discovered within itself. It was not the voice of a child, no, nor the voice of a fool. It was a voice to be obeyed. There was a bright flash of light, leaving Severus blinded for a moment, and when his vision had cleared the wolf was frozen in place as he had been, up on its hind legs, claws bared and spread to the air as if they might be wings for flight.   
  
Severus's heart jumped a little in his chest, and then he felt the stone of his muscles melt into jelly. His knees buckled beneath him, and as he sank to the floor he let his eyes shut, let the first breath for a minute and a half rasp through his throat. He caught just before his eyes closed the image of James Potter, tousle haired, fiery eyed, standing between himself and the wolf, chest rising and falling rapidly, looking nothing like a child. And then his eyes squeezed tight shut and he half-collapsed out of relief, so that he missed the transition of James Potter from an adult back into a child, confused and unsure if whether he had done the right thing, or not.

Everything went wonderfully silent for a while, just Severus's pulse pounding in his own ears. A shadow passed over his closed eyelids, and he both felt and heard James kneel down beside him. 

"Are you all right?" the boy asked, softly, his voice sounding more raw and more ragged than Severus felt his own would, were he to speak. There was also genuine concern in it, worry filtering through. Whatever this had been, it seemed as if James had not been a part of it until this very moment.

"I," Severus began, but a tremor ran through him, and he found he could not yet talk. James rested a hand on his shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

"You're all in one piece, at least," James said, and it did not seem as if he had the potential for humor at all in what might otherwise be a joking statement. They remained like that for a minute while Severus calmed, and was at last able both to speak and to open his eyes. Behind his glasses, James looked serious, drained, as in the ebb-tide of something enormous that had simply been passing through him. Severus swallowed down the thick fear that had lodged itself in his throat, let out a shuddering breath, and spoke.

"What _is_ that?" he asked, shuddering. James looked shamefaced, saddened, by the question.

"I think you know," he murmured, pulling back and standing. There was a streak of blood on his arm and one of dirt across his face, and it was clear to see he had been through a good deal, trying to get to this place in time. Severus wondered if his legs had regained strength enough for him to be able to stand.

"I," Severus tried again, and then he bowed his head. It was a beast, a monster, if one wanted to put it that way, terrifying and mindless, capable of remorseless murder and destruction. It was Remus, quiet, soft-spoken, intelligent; sweet, if you let him be, if you got him unguarded enough; pained, obviously, just as secretive as Severus himself was, so that it was clear he was hiding something. But not this. Severus had never expected _this._

"We need to get out of here," James said softly, "so that I can take the spell off." Severus nodded, scrambling to his feet without second request and dashing for the door, disappearing out of sight behind it. James took a last look at the frozen creature, just as trapped as it have ever been, and the sightless understanding in its eyes. In the morning, Remus would know. He took a step towards it, and then bowed his head. "I'm sorry," he murmured, "I can't make _everything_ right. I want to. But I can't -- not everything. Not" He didn't finish the sentence. He was only talking to himself, anyway. A moment later he had followed Severus out the door, and once it was shut securely behind him he ended the spell. From within the room, they could hear a howl, long and low, follow a snarl of surprise, and then the thick thud of a furred body smashing itself against the creaking but unbreakable wood.

James and Severus met Sirius, Lilly and Peter when they got to the bottom of the creaking staircase. Sirius looked the worst of them all, if only for the panicked uncertainty in his deep blue eyes, but once he saw Severus that looked faded, to be replaced only with the shadow of despair at his own foolishness. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then thought the better of it and kept himself quiet, pressing his lips tightly together to signal that he would remain quiet. James nodded curtly to him, a look that said they'd be talking later. Again, Sirius winced like a scolded dog, but bowed his head to it in acquiescence.

Lilly herself moved immediately to James's side, blind to Peter's eyes as they followed her, and looked up at the dark-haired boy's blue eyes, the pupils dilated, the color darker, more murky, than before. Still, she said nothing, just looking at him, touching his arm, to let him know she was there. He leaned against her gratefully.

"Let's just -- let's just all go," James said at last, breaking the stagnant silence that angled sharply between the five of them. With James leading and Sirius going last, they started back down into the darkness of the tunnel, all of them suddenly weary and more tired than they ever had been, muscles remembering the panic of just moments before, hearts remembering the anguish. 

Sirius cast a last look over his shoulder towards the staircase, carelessly made and put together, and the shut door above it. For a moment, he wondered if he should go up there, should do something to appease the broken spirit he had unwittingly crushed with his carelessness, with the stupidity of his own passion.

"Yeah," he murmured softly, under his breath, as he turned again to go, "I guess I could say I'm sorry, but that's not good enough." It was the finality of his own acceptance, the knowledge that _nothing_ he did now, short of a miracle, short of turning back the wheels of time, would be good enough to fix things as they were now. No apology could do the trick, no kiss, no touch, no words were strong enough to combat the enormity of his failure. Remus would not forgive him, for how could he? Knowing this, Sirius knew too that above all, he did not deserve forgiveness. That maybe, this was the end of what had only been the beginning.

He squared his shoulders, and slipped down into the tunnel, where the friendly darkness waited to envelop him with lonely arms.

When Remus awoke there was silence throughout the infirmary, which meant he could not hear the familiar rhythm of Sirius breathing, which meant that Sirius was not waiting there, for him. For a moment, his sense of routine was thrown, and he wondered why Sirius was not yet beside him, where it seemed quite clear that he belonged. And then, without even having to reach for it, he remembered. 

The night before came easily to him, easily perhaps because once he began to recall each new detail, he did not want to. Life seemed to work in patterns of irony, just like that. He shuddered, remembering Severus, remembering how wonderful he had felt it would have been to tear out his throat and his belly and taste at last the sweetness of someone else's blood. Soon after he remembered James, the binding spell, the way his muscles froze but his eyes could see all. The hesitation in James step as he moved closer, and then hurried out, was most fresh in his mind, for it was the first thing he recalled, and the last thing he returned to dwell upon.

For a while longer it did not make coherent sense to him, the events and why they had happened as they did, and so Remus lay in bed with his eyes fixed on the ceiling above as he tried to piece things together. He did not blink save for when his vision got so blurry and his eyes began to blur so badly that he was forced to do so, if only to keep from going blind. At last, when all reason left him, when all he knew to be true had been proven it could not, simply for the presence of each concrete fact, Remus was forced to believe that one of his friends must have told Severus where Remus could be found. And the only someone who knew exactly how to freeze the willow to get to the passage was Sirius.

Remus's mind froze and refused to grip such a conclusion for an hour or so. The sunlight in the infirmary grew brighter, more cheerful, in direct contrast to the sinking ache that was growing heavily in Remus's belly. For a long while, Remus just lay there, the long minutes passing.

When he at last left the infirmary, he had resolved himself, had therefore convinced himself, had moments later resigned himself, to living as it would be now. Remus had trusted Sirius with his life, with every secret he held, with the confusion of his hesitant body and the very beginnings of what might have been love. And Sirius had told Severus. There could be no more trust, and where there was no trust, Remus concluded, there was also no friendship. 

It was late afternoon when Remus returned to the boy's half of the Gryffindor bedroom, bandages wrapped tight around his wrists and palms, joints and flesh aching. As a result of the previous night's denial of feral satisfaction he had torn into himself, and was lucky that he could not feel the extent of the pain in his body, since his heart had grown so numb.

They were waiting for him; James and Sirius on the edges of their seats, and Peter in the background, watching half-curiously more than anything else. For a moment. Remus wondered at the somersaulting of his heart, and questioned his resolve to keep from looking at any one of them. Somehow, his eyes remained on his bed, where his bookbag was resting, underneath that and the previous days' assignments. He picked one sheet of parchment up and skimmed his eyes over it, silent, still refusing to acknowledge the presence of the other three.

The silence was agony itself, eating away at Remus's stomach, poisoning everything within his chest. It lasted for what seemed to be years but was no doubt in actuality only a handful of unimportant minutes, until Sirius's patience broke and he found he could force himself to stand the silence no longer.

"I can't apologize," Sirius said at last, something harsh and a little ragged in his choked voice, "I can't, and we both know it, huh. 'Cause you can't even -- you can't even look at me." It was then that he stood and the bedsprings creaked and he moved as quickly as he could out of the room, to who knew where. Remus didn't look up, didn't pause in reading over the assignment.

"Suppose I didn't come fast enough," James said, lifting his eyes to the ceiling, squinting to keep something out of them, or perhaps to keep something in, "and I'm -- I'm sorry for that, Remus." A moment later, he was gone, no doubt following Sirius to wherever it was he had chosen to run off. Taking a deep breath, Remus steeled himself against the urge to care. Betrayal, thick and terrible, had taken root inside of him, not loud but refusing to be ignored, so that it had become too strong to push aside, too strong to do anything but harbor it as a friend inside the shelter of his own heart. 

Peter was still there, watching, but it had always been easy to pretend he wasn't there, for he always liked to pretend it, too. Maybe it was that he wanted to watch, or maybe it was something else entirely. Remus had never been able to read him, and had given up wanting to try after the first year. 

"Just," Peter said, almost sudden enough to be startling, but too unobtrusive to attain that goal, "I," but he sighed a little, and changed course, "I think the Potions assignment was a hard one, so you might want to get it out of the way before you start on anything else." Remus nodded mutely. "And" Peter bit his lip, pale hands moving nervously over the binding of his own book, "in Transfiguration, we're having a test, tomorrow. You might want to borrow someone's notes from class today, since that's what it's on." Again, Remus nodded, but he still refused to look up. Finding at last that he could do nothing to distract Remus from his cobwebbed, isolationist silence, Peter shrugged, figuring he'd done what he could, or what he wanted to think he could, and that he could do no more. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and padded out almost soundlessly, looking back over his shoulder once or twice. Remus looked smaller than usual, like a gray shadow, a spider-spun ghost.

_ Well,_ Peter figured, _nothing _I_ can do, now is there?_ Not his fault, neither his duty, or something along those lines. He'd read them somewhere, but as he thought about it, making his way down the stairs to the common room, he didn't quite remember where.

Back by his bed, Remus drew the curtains around himself, canopied in solitude, and tried to keep from smelling Sirius on the air, or on his pillow, or on the embrace of the sheets pulled up tight to his chin.

When James eventually found Sirius, who had managed to elude him for a full ten minutes, it was curled up in a secret passageway they had discovered together, one of which they had not yet located the destination. They had found it rather recently, so that James could have kicked himself for not realizing sooner that it would be fresh in Sirius's mind, and one of the more logical places for him to go, were he looking for privacy.

"Oh," James said, ducking low and slipping inside, "I should have known you'd be here." He sat down in the shadows and the dust, barely able to make out any more than just the barest outline of Sirius's form. His friend had drawn his knees up to his chest, chin resting atop them, arms wrapped tight around himself, and from his silence James could tell Sirius didn't trust the strength of his own voice enough to speak. Sirius was one of those people -- a group in which James was definitely included -- who couldn't stand to cry alone, much less in front of someone. "Sirius?" James tried again after a few minutes, leaning closer, fighting back the tickle in his nose from all the dust. "Sirius, are you?"

"Okay?" Sirius's voice was muffled by his knees. "Yeah. I'm okay. I guess I haveta be. Right?" It sounded rough and a little bit shaky, too, as well as unclear. James sighed, settling himself down. Things like this were never easy, he knew, though he wondered how he knew it -- after all, he'd never dealt with something like this before.

"It doesn't work that way. That you have to be, and so you are. You're either okay, or you're not. Are you? Okay?" James had to strain to hear the response.

"Maybe not," Sirius replied finally, head ducking down to rest upon his knees, "yeah, maybe not."

"I didn't think so," James replied, voice soft and unreadable.

"You know so damn much, of course you didn't think so." The bitterness that had been intended for the retort faded away, Sirius's resolve faltering. He hadn't cried since he was six. He'd been riding a hand-me-down bike of Michael's, the red paint all chipping, the spokes rusting and the brakes in need of some oil, and he'd hit a rock, so that he went flying up in the air and came down hard. As a result, all the skin had been scraped from both his knees. Sitting there, crying in the middle of the backyard, Michael had watched him not dispassionately but also none too sympathetically, either, shaking his head.

"Don't cry, Sirius," he'd admonished, "don't cry; you've only scraped your knees." The look in Michael's dark eyes, disapproving, and half-pitying, as well, was the reason why Sirius hadn't cried since. Now, with the burn behind his eyes and thickness in his throat, he felt weak, pathetic, like a little child again. He hated feeling that way. He supposed, though, that he deserved what came to him, no matter what it was, and he swallowed back any anger, crushed any resurgence of pride.

"No," James said carefully, breaking Sirius out of his self-pitying reverie, "I just saw the way you looked, before. It's not," he went on, looking away, "that I don't blame you for this. Because I do. Entirely. But it's also not that I don't -- understand, I think. I mightI might have done the same, over Lilly. Perhaps."

"You wouldn't have," Sirius returned, shaking his head and causing dust clouds to puff up around the both of them, "you're too smart for that."

"But," James continued quickly, "I would have wanted to, I suppose. I would have wanted to, a lot. So I'm telling you, I understand. You're not right, I just -- I understand."

"Yeah?" In the lack of light Sirius's blue eyes lifted to James's face, glistening with something. Thankfulness, perhaps, or just the appearance of that something which was blocking his throat and causing it to go dry and swollen all at once. Really, he did look quite pathetically sad, so much so that James would have done anything he could for him, were there anything to be done. There wasn't. He'd seen the way Remus looked, on the defensive as he hadn't been since they were First Years, and perhaps worse, since back then he'd had no reason to keep away and now, he did, the pang of betrayal hurting far worse than anything else could have.

"Yes," James murmured, "I think." Sirius laughed softly, and then turned quickly so that James couldn't see his face, or the loss that contorted it from childish bravado to adult despair.

"That's-- great," Sirius breathed out slowly, "that's just-- I'm glad you understand. Glad I haven't lost everyone."

"You're not losing _me_," James scoffed, "no matter _what_ stupid stunts you pull, so don't even think about _that_ for a minute." The intended joking nature of his words fell short, heavy where they should have been light, and stretched out an uncomfortable awkwardness behind them. Sirius winced.

"Yeah," he whispered, "yeah, okay. I knew that. Right."

"But I'm not Remus," James said thoughtfully, after a few silent moments had passed, "I'm not anything like Remus. I'm not as important as Remus, and I never could hope to be."

"James--"

"No," James interrupted, "don't say it, whatever it is, because you bloody well know it's not true. Remus is Remus. Something different. Like Lilly is, with me, and that's something else completely. Isn't it?" Sirius bit his lower lip.

"Do you love Lilly?" he asked quietly, still not looking at James's face.

"Maybe," James said, then added, "I don't know if we're supposed to know these sorts of things, yet."

"Not supposed to know love?"

"We're still young." James grinned wryly. "We're still very young. Love is something that -- well, it isn't, quite. It has nothing to do with being young."

"It has everything to do with being young," Sirius disputed, voice firm, "everything. You know -- because I really do -- love him. Only I never got to tell him that. And then I did -- I did _this._ So now, I can't. I should have. I should have told him, but I didn't. I was too -- scared, and now I -- I can't." The dusty air in the hidden passage was somber, stale. James swallowed each word thoughtfully, more surprised by this sudden and sincere admission than he had ever been by a single other action of Sirius's, in all the years they'd known each other. "I really wanted to," Sirius explained, and James wasn't sure if he was talking to him or himself or someone else entirely, "I really wanted to, even though I was scared. I really thought that"

"Sirius," James said, but he had nothing else to offer besides that.

"He thinks I'm so brave," Sirius continued, shaking his head, "people think I'm brave. I'm not! I'm not a hero, I'm not -- I'm not anyone. I'm just Sirius. I'm just" He trailed off, his voice growing quiet. A little sound escape from deep within his chest, ragged and young and filled with fear. "I'm alone," he finished at last, "I'm alone. I don't want to be alone."

"You're not alone," James replied, "you're not alone, you idiot, I'm here. You're not going to be alone. I won't _let_ you be alone."

"I'm alone," Sirius repeated, "I'm just-- I'm-- I'm alone." He clutched his knees tighter against his chest, fingers digging into his shins, eyes squeezing shut for a moment to dam the surge of emotion that flushed through him like a tidal wave. It was hard to fight it, just as it was hard to fight anger, even harder to fight jealousy. Something Remus had red him once: beware the green-eyed beast. Or something along those lines, because he couldn't remember it completely, now.

"Stop saying that," James muttered, watching him from the corner of his eye, "just stop it, it's stupid."

"I'm not _good_ at being alone," Sirius said helplessly, "I'm _good_ at being stupid, but I'm _terrible_ at being alone. I can't-- I can't--"

"Sirius," James cut in, leaning over to take him by the shoulders, "Sirius, shut up. Either something happens to change his mind and he trusts you again, or it doesn't, and he doesn't. But no matter what, you're not alone. You won't be alone. I won't let you, I promise. All right?" Anything to make that panicked sound in Sirius's voice fade away.

"I'm alone," Sirius whispered, "without him. That's what love is. Isn't it? That I'm alone even if I have a thousand other people right with me, if he isn't there. That's love. Loneliness." His blue eyes were panicked and wild. James shook him, but he didn't seem to notice, burning gaze fixed pleadingly on James's face.

"I don't know," James replied, "I don't know what love is. But I don't think it's loneliness. That-- that can't be it." Sirius shook his head wildly, trying to pull away from James's hands, but the bespectacled boy held him tighter, drawing strength from that secret reserve inside him, the very same one that had allowed him to cast the full body bind the night before. Sirius struggled again, and then fell still, dropping against James's shoulder.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

"I--" James found himself stumbling over his words, at a loss. "I know." He settled finally on slipping his arms around Sirius's shoulders and pulled him close, shaking his head. He held his friend tight as he shook, praying apologies against the collar of his robe. "I know you're sorry. It's all right. It'll be all right, Sirius. Really."

"I'm sorry," Sirius repeated, voice hoarse, dry, "I don't know what to _do._"

"Sometimes we don't," James soothed, "sometimes there isn't anything to do but let time pass, and then, maybe"

"I can't trust maybes," Sirius said, a whimper passing his throat as it would a dog denied its home. For once, the power of Sirius's devotion, the strength of each emotion he harbored in his heart, hit James full in the stomach and knocked him breathless. James had always assumed they were too young for love, that puppy love itself was possible, crushes, strong attachments, deep friendship could all be formed but love, the sort of love that was true and mind-numbing and heart-breaking, did not come at this age. James was always open, no matter how grudgingly so, to being completely and absolutely wrong in his assumptions. This seemed to be one of those times where an open mind, as well as an open heart, proved all preconceptions to be void. It made him think, for a moment or more, about Lilly, and what he would do without her.

It occurred to him at that moment that he didn't know. It occurred to him a moment later that he might go mad.

So maybe that _was_ what love was. The utter fear of loneliness, a loneliness left by the loss of that which you could not go on without. A loneliness that allowed you to be in a full room with laughter and song, food and drink, bright lights and many friends, but still feel as if you were alone, severed from the company of everyone else, simply because you lacked that which was singly important in a world where all else became petty desires in its face. So maybe Sirius had been right, in his own way. Maybe only great grief brought true knowledge and great loneliness, true love. It was chilling to imagine.

At some point during James's musings Sirius began to cry, great dry, shuddering sobs, so that James was tossed back from contemplation and the depths of his thoughts to realize that his friend was clinging to him, choking upon his own tears.

"Sirius," James murmured, realizing he had never before actually seen his friend cry, "oh, God, Sirius." He held him as he wept, emotion pouring out from within him and onto James's shoulder, emotion strong enough to take the both of them by force and tear their guts out, piece by piece. When he stopped sobbing and merely let the tears flow at last, hot and fast down his cheeks, all was silent save for the occasional rasping breath that caught in Sirius's throat. And still, James held him. When the tears subsided, and they were left with true silence at last, even their breaths stilled and hushed on the air, Sirius kept his fingers knotted in the sleeves of James's robes, and James kept his hands in the awkward but comforting resting place upon his friend's lower back. As if they had been carved out of stone, they remained still, chests just barely rising and falling to remind themselves that they lived.

Sirius was exhausted. He had not slept the night before; had instead sat awake, waiting for dawn to rise in Remus's bed, daring to creep there once the others had collapsed, exhausted, into their own beds to sleep. It smelled of Remus, all suffused with the richness of chocolate and the sweetness of wild, nighttime grass, and the musk-like tang of dirt. Remus smelled the like the earth, delicious and real and solid and perfect. There had never been a reason before this for Sirius to shun the world in which he lived, which was why he adored so the realism of Remus's quite unusual body. One of the painful things of life, along with one of the most beautiful. Perhaps like the moon, which had inspired the nickname of Moony before Sirius even knew the irony of calling Remus by such a title. Perhaps more like a dark forest night, with the leaves rustled by barely any wind, everything still as life, silent as a slumbering hoot-owl, with the potential for letting out a keening, piercing call into the shadows, but a refusal to do so, a longing for the pregnancy, and the sweetness, of a night without sand. Remus was the moonlight on the leaves of the trees. Remus was the moonlight glistening in the mud. Remus was the moonlight upon the curl of a snail shell. Remus was the moonlight upon the lake, a half reflection, obscured by each ripple cause by even the most minute of movements. Remus was the moonlight upon the silent and dark sky. Remus was the moonlight that settled over midnight music.

Remus -- oh, above all, Remus _was,_ and that was the most wonderful thing of all about him. It made Sirius shiver just to think of him.

"Sirius?" James's voice was soft, very careful, cutting into the silence just as it had intended to, with slow and gentle ease. It did not startle Sirius at all, just shook him kindly from his open-eyed, tear-sticky trance. Sirius pulled back from James's arms, rubbing the heel of his palm against one eye. 

"Yeah?" His voice sounded terrible, all choked up and rasping, and he coughed softly, dislodging excess tears from the back of his throat.

"We'll think of something," James promised, "we'll think of something, no matter what. You won't be alone." The stickiness of each tear's track down the side of Sirius's cheeks, chin, even neck, was rubbed off unceremoniously by the back of his hand, skin growing pink with the roughness of Sirius's own clumsy self-administrations. "I won't let you be alone, Sirius."

"I know," Sirius replied, voice firm, none of the tearing shakiness left in his tones, not even the smallest whisper. Together, he and James could get into and out of any situation, once they put both their minds to it. Where there was Sirius's will, there was always determination enough to find a way. It may be that he had to wait a while for any result, but Sirius could force himself to be patient, so long as he at last regained Remus's trust, and banished all thoughts of such love turned loneliness from his own mind. "And -- James?" 

"Yes?"

"Thanks." Sirius flashed a wobbly but resolute grin, brushing dust out of his own hair. "I'll make sure you're never lonely, either. Without Lilly, or -- whoever it is. 'Too young yet to know' considered, and all that nonsense you were spouting before." James returned the grin, eyes sparkling behind his glasses, stubbornly tousled hair falling over his forehead.

"Then it's a deal," James said, holding out his hand with a mock attempt at dignity on his face. Sirius took the proffered hand and shook it just as solemnly, the shake feeling wonderfully friendly, gloriously tight.

"A deal," Sirius agreed.

It was hard for Remus to tell whether or not Severus had embraced acceptance when they met next to study, but he did not shun him altogether, which was a sign, perhaps, or at least a start.

"We don't have to talk about it," Severus said immediately, before Remus could say anything. It was as if he knew what was coming and sought to cut it off before the topic could be fully realized by either of them. Remus blinked and looked away, cultivating the numbness, refusing to let his heart speed up behind his ribcage. When he had told Lilly, James and Peter it had pounded so fast that afterwards he had been dizzy enough to have to sit down. He refused to let that happen. He refused to let himself care.

"All right," Remus replied carefully, "all right, we don't." His hands were still on the opened book before him. Good. Hands that trembled displayed nervousness all too clearly. He had resolved to stay calm, and stay calm he would.

"Because really," Severus said, speaking again halfway through their taking notes, "really, it doesn't bother me. I just didn't know."

"I almost killed you," Remus said flatly, "it matters. It should bother you."

"You didn't," Severus mumbled, stumbling awkwardly over his words, "I mean, it wasn't -- it was the -- you know what I'm saying," he finished off weakly, looking away, as he was suddenly unable to meet Remus's eyes. Remus swallowed, taking a deep but silent breath before he spoke in return.

"That is me," he said softly, "so really, I did almost kill you. I can't apologize for it -- there's nothing I can say." He paused. "We don't have to be doing this. You don't have to think you need to prove anything to me, or to yourself. You can -- you _can_ just leave, if you want."

"I never said I wanted to," Severus replied firmly, "we're studying. For potions. Nothing has changed."

"Everything's changed," Remus replied dully, "and you know it." At that, they met each other's eyes, and Severus's brow wrinkled in a knot of thought.

"Maybe," he said, "but only maybe." For the next half hour, that was all they spoke of it, talking only to exchange opinions or insights towards their project. When they unfortunately got into a discussion about fluxweed, one of the necessary ingredients for the potion they were planning, Severus found his attention and his thoughts drawn once more towards the topic of the full moon.

"How much had to be added, again?" Remus asked quietly, flipping through the pages of the thick, leatherbound volume opened on the desk before him.

"Does it hurt?" There was silence. Severus's sallow cheeks colored slightly in realization of the personal nature of such a question, but he did not withdraw it. "Changing, I mean. I don't know anything about werewolves, anything at all. Does it? Hurt?"

"Very much," Remus replied honestly, his voice wiped clean of any emotion, "why do you ask?"

"I was just -- I was just wondering. There's nothing to be taken for it, or anything like that, after all."

"No."

"Right," Severus said, "you're supposed to add exactly as much fluxweed as you add root of asphodel, usually one or two tablespoons full." Remus nodded, bending once again over his work. "There aren't any potions, not even from the Ministry?"

"No," Remus said, not looking up from the words he continued to scrawl in dark ink over the parchment.

"Oh," Severus murmured, lips pursing, mind pulled elsewhere. For the rest of the night it was obvious he was barely concentrating on their work, which made Remus feel strangely distracted, himself. After that night, though, he made no more mention of it, and showed no more curiosity, so that the topic of Remus's abnormality was no longer discussed between them for a very long time afterwards.

For the rest of the year Sirius and Remus did not speak with one another, so that they grew accustomed to the loneliness of their respective, and, so it seemed, half-empty, beds. Remus kept to himself, or spoke on the occasion to Severus, when the both of them had free time enough outside of doing classwork. Sirius, though slightly more subdued and less cocksure, was just like his old self, except for the fact that his old self seemed to be attached at the hip to Remus. He laughed with James, Lilly and Peter and the occasional girl, but he let no one close. In the evenings, he and James planned, with the occasional help of Lilly, and more input from an interested Peter than they would have expected. They still had yet to come to any concrete decision as to what they were going to do in the way of fixing everything, but by the time school had ended and they traveled back towards home on the Hogwarts Express, they were closer to deciding than ever before.

"I'll come by and visit," James promised, "for a week or two at _least._ Peter, you should come along too, if you can." It was the first time, or so it seemed to Peter, that he had been invited along. He agreed readily, excitement outweighing surprise.

In all the time between the incident at the Whomping Willow and when they parted ways on Platform 9 and 3/4, Sirius had only admitted to missing Remus once. The rest he kept inside himself, guarded as precious, and used to banish loneliness in the memory of sharing Remus's smile on his lips, as well as to fuel his determination to fix everything as quickly as possible. What he'd done wrong, he'd put to right again. It was a promise he made to himself, just as important as the one he'd made to James, and above all he knew he would not break it.

The summer began slowly but not as painful as the others had been. As Sirius had not spent the last few months before the end of school solely with Remus by his side, he had no completion to compare with the acute sense of loneliness he felt now. It had all been rather lonely, in fact, but at least now he had his work, his plans, his preparations for James's summer visit, to busy himself with. He rarely went out, surprising Aquila and completely dumbfounding Michael, who had thought this summer would be their last together before Michael joined Orion down in the mines. Though Michael could not solidly blame Sirius's distance upon Remus, he knew without a doubt it had something to do with the quiet boy, for no one could affect Sirius as much as Remus could.   
  
It nearly drove Michael mad. His only consolation was that Sirius had stopped talking about the boy altogether, and perhaps the silence could be attributed to the fact that they were no longer on speaking terms. He hoped it was that, in any case, for above all he knew that he did not like the boy, that he was different, and would change Sirius for something Michael knew in his heart to be for the worst.

  
  
On the first day Sirius decided to go out, and truly go out, he took a long walk down the road, letting his feet take him to wherever they pleased without having to first consult his brain. The day was bright and sweet and not at all overly hot, as when he started out it was still early, and the sun had not yet risen to its full, parching potential. The road was a well traveled one, and he had known the way by heart since he was barely six years old. Knowing where he was going, or wasn't going, without having to think about it beyond the lifting of one foot after another, was something that allowed Sirius to keep his mind on other things, important or not. As Sirius saw it, the importance of something was entirely subjective, and while any particular person might not have considered devoting his mind to thoughts about Remus was a productive way to spend his time, Sirius would have heartily disagreed. 

He was lost in thought when he came to the house at the end of the well-worn dirt path, one that had been for most of Sirius's life abandoned but had just recently been restored, and had been far from abandoned for at least a year and a half, now. The small cottage had been painted in fresh whitewash, and there was a summer bloom circling all around it. The roof, too, had been recently thatched, but only in certain spots, as if there had been an accident, or a few leaks that needed fixing. Sirius let his eyes move up and down the house, over the haphazard picket fence and the sapling planted at one corner, blossoming greenly, like a miniature expression of summer. There was a mat in front of the small doorway which said WELCOME loudly upon it, and a pair of dress shoes rested their, glimmering glossily beneath the sunlight.

_"Me and three of the boys tried to torch his house a few weeks ago," Sean said, "but he caught on to us and put it out 'fore it could do any damage at all. If he had any mind at all he'd take it as a damn warning and get the hell out 'fore we do worse to him. We can and he knows it."_

Sirius winced as he noticed the number over the door, stating in dark letters on white "62 The Glen." So that explained the look of recent restoration, for no doubt Sean, Michael, or any number of their interchangeable friends had come calling recently, just for consistency's sake. Scuffing his sneaker in the dirt, he took a step off the path and onto the grass, careful not to crush any wildflowers as he peered around to the back of the house. 

Kneeling in front of a small gardening patch, brown earth looking healthy and alive, was a man who was not young but was not old, either, packing down patches of dirt around seeds with his bare hands. A streak of dirt was smeared over one cheek, but rather than looking dirty or hot, as Aquila most often did when she was working in the garden, he had a half smile on his face that said quite plainly he was enjoying himself. Sirius blinked from that crouching form to the freshly thatched places on the roof, and then back to that form again, hands shoved helplessly in his pockets. He wasn't sure if he was being quite polite or not, or, he was very sure he was not being polite at all, and simply didn't care. After a few moments of remaining unaware the man stiffened, and looked up, like a wild animal caught off guard and tensed against becoming another animal's prey. When he saw Sirius, though, he relaxed, offering a different sort of smile, one that wasn't distracted and wasn't distant and reminded Sirius of someone else, though he didn't quite know who.

"Hullo," Sirius said, head tilting to the side, eyes wandering away.

"Good afternoon," the man replied, standing and brushing his hands off on the front of his dirt- and grass-stained jeans, "may I help you?"

"Not really," Sirius said after a moment, shrugging, "I was just taking a walk, and I seem to have wound up here. Sorry if I'm-- trespassing, or something like that."

"Not at all," the man reassured him, smile growing, "you're doing nothing of the sort." Sirius flashed a grin back, still studying the man and his surroundings with a careful eye, still hearing Sean and Michael's biting words as if they were still cutting fresh into his ears.

_"Someone I used to know from school just moved back here," Sean began slowly, "from college. He's brought this -- friend -- with him."  
_  
"Thanks," Sirius said, "sometimes-you know, people get kinda touchy. You know," he added a little more softly, "how they can get, around here." A flash of something dark passed over the man's face, but he shrugged it off hurriedly, replacing it once more with that honest, warm smile.

"Yes," he murmured carefully, a little sparkle in one gray eye, "yes, I think I do. What brings you down here, then?" He rubbed at the streak of dirt on his cheek with the back of his wrist, succeeding only in distributing the smudge in a wider circumference over his skin. Sirius tried not to grin again as he wondered over why it was that he was there, of all places. Aquila sometimes spoke of a Providence that provided, or somesuch nonsense as that, a sort of theory that Sirius wasn't too keen on, since it left too many things unanswered and, when questions were asked, gave merely vague responses that didn't explain anything at all, once you thought about it. No, Sirius wasn't big on Providence, but he was big on practical jokes of any sort, and it seemed that this was one of them. He wasn't quite sure if he found it all too funny yet, but he'd have to wait and see on that one.

"Just taking a walk," he decided on finally, "wasn't really paying attention, or anything like that. I'm sorry if I bothered you or something. Didn't mean to." The man shook his head, holding up both hands palms forward.

"Don't even think of such a thing," he protested, "please. Not a bother at all. It seems I'd lost track of the time in the garden, and I've completely forgotten to have breakfast. Perhaps you'd like to join me...and, oh my, I seem to not know your name." A slight flush crept over the man's cheeks at those words, and Sirius couldn't help but grin then.

"Sirius," Sirius supplied him, "Sirius Black. It's nice to meet you, but I don't know your name, either." The blush faded faintly, to be replaced with a sort of white, anxious pale, and then it was chased away by another, steelier resolve. Sirius wondered if the man knew who it was had been setting fire to the thatch on his roof and vandalizing his freshly whitewashed cottage. 

"Hector Karnaugh," the man replied, holding out a dirty hand with a sheepish green. Sirius didn't even blink, taking it in a handshake and not bothering to comment on the rich soil that came off afterwards on his own palm.

"Nice t'meet you," Sirius said, finding himself unable to stop grinning, as if it had something to do with the sunshine and the sweet smell of freshly cut grass and the dirt that was both cool and warm at once on his palm.

"Well," Hector said, rubbing again at the side of his cheek with the back of his hand, "now that you've reminded me it's way past the usual time I get hungry, would you like to join me for a bit of late breakfast?" Before he could answer, Sirius's stomach rumbled at the idea, reminding him that he was a growing boy, and the last time he'd eaten was a full hour and a half ago. Hector flashed a faint smile. "I'll take that as a yes," he murmured wryly, setting down his gardening things by the patch he was working on. "Shall we?"

"Don't see why not," Sirius said, shrugging faintly, "all right. If it's no trouble, of course."

"Wouldn't have invited you if it was," Hector protested, his eyes sparkling amusedly. "I'm not _that_ sort of person." And Sirius realized, with a bit of awe and a bit of humor, that he knew _exactly_ what it was that Hector meant.

After stuffing themselves full of the most delicious muffins Sirius had ever laid tooth upon, along with a few cups of sweet, perfectly brewed tea and a few butter and jam sandwiches, Hector and Sirius had leaned back in their seats at the small table for two, silent for the most part, but not uncomfortably so. The small cottage was clean and it smelled fresh, just like summer, so that Sirius couldn't imagine ever wanting to leave it. When Hector stood to wash the dishes Sirius, trained from a young age in how to be respectably polite in all possible situations by his mother, followed suit, stacking the dishes in his arms and following behind the man to the sink. Something had been plaguing his mind for a while as they ate, and it seemed as if at any moment impulse would take over that beaten-in sense of politeness. It was only a matter of when.

"You know," Sirius said, as it came at last, "they're not going to stop, no matter how much you put up with it." It was easier to say things when the sound of running water flowed over your words, half masking them. Still, Hector heard them, and there was no mistaking what it was Sirius was talking about, despite how at random the words seemed to come. In any case, Hector had only been expecting as much. Despite a slight stiffening in his shoulders, his body language refused to change, his hands never once stilling on the glistening white plate they were cleaning.

"I know," Hector replied carefully, "they're very-- persistent, or so I've noticed." He handed off the dish to Sirius for drying, noticing the look of intent though that wrinkled up the boy's brow before he turned his back to him once more.

"So why don't you just leave?" Sirius asked at last, wondering. "If you know they're not going to stop, then why do you put up with it?" 

"Because of human dignity and pride," Hector said softly, voice half bitter, half warm, "because I refuse to let prejudice push me out of a place I love. If I let that happen-- well, then, I'd always be running away from something, wouldn't I? Whether it had to do with whom it was I loved, or something entirely different altogether."

"Oh," Sirius said dumbly, voice thick.

"So I suppose," Hector continued, hands stilling at last, "I suppose I simply can't allow them to 'win' something they don't deserve to."

"It isn't winning if one of you gets hurt," Sirius said suddenly, "it isn't winning for either of you if you aren't safe."

"You can't live your life running, either," Hector returned calmly, "you can't look at yourself in the mirror if you've run all your life. I've run for a long time, and-- it's no way to live."

"How can you look at yourself in a mirror if-- if you let someone hurt the person you love? If you don't do everything you can to protect them?" Sirius clenched his fingers around the dishrag in his hands, biting down on his lower lip. 

"He wouldn't want to leave," Hector murmured, "he-- he rather likes it here, in fact. So-- all I can do is stay. Do what I can to make it safe for the both of us. Help him fix up the roof or repaint the walls, or plant a few flowers in the garden. He likes roses, you know, so-- I..." He trailed off, shaking his head. It was hard to believe he was having this sort of conversation with a child, hard to believe that a child could ask such questions as this Sirius Black was.

"Oh," Sirius said again, "oh."

"So you see," Hector went on softly, "when you love someone, as I love him, you don't-- you don't let people, such as your brothers, get in the way of that. Of-- their happiness."

"Their happiness is everything, isn't it," Sirius whispered, very quietly. "But what if you've-- what if you've done something that hurts 'em? What if you've done something and you don't know how to _fix_ it?" Hector blinked, turning to look at the boy from the corner of his eye. "Sorry," Sirius muttered. "I-- nevermind that," he added quickly, eyes lowered to the ground.

"No," Hector said, "no, that's a good question. Yes, their happiness _is_ everything. So if you've done something -- by accident, I'm certain -- to cause them any pain, you simply have to think of a way to make them not _forget_, per se, but to keep them from exactly _remembering._ By making them happy, again." By the time Hector had finished speaking Sirius was smiling again, a bright smile that hadn't graced his lips in a long while.

"Yeah," Sirius murmured, "you're right. Here; hand over that dish. 'S clean enough." Hector blinked faintly, caught off guard by the brightness of that youthful smile, and then couldn't help but realize how fully infectious it was. This boy was nothing like his brothers, something else altogether, a bit of magic in his eyes and a bit of wisdom buried underneath the childishness in his heart. No doubt he'd gone walking because there was no one to appreciate him properly back in his own home. 

"Right," Hector said, and he passed the dish over.

The moment after Sirius said his goodbyes and stepped out the low door and into the sunlight, he had determined a task. With such an idea at his heels he ran all the way home and called James immediately with breathless urgency, so that plans were made for him to come in two days.  
  
"Right," Sirius said to his mirror that night, "I'll see Remus smile again." When you got right down to it, it really _was_ that simple, after all. 


	11. SNIPPET of Chapter Ten: Une Epine, Une E...

NOTE!!! This is NOT THE NEXT CHAPTER OF COEUR DE LOUPE. This is a snipper to show that it IS being written, and will be up as soon as is possible. This is for all the wonderful, WONDERFUL people who have read, reviewed, and especially for those who wrote me emails or IMed me. Thank you all, so very much. This is just to tide you over. Or torture you. Or something. Or to entice more reviews, in the hopes that they will inspire me to write more. Thank you all for your patience!

  
He met the black dog again the next day. It was 'met' in the sense that he saw the beast, and the beast saw him, and they spoke as only they could, through a puffing of breath and a beating of hearts and a rustling of fur and air over skin.

_Hello,_ said the black dog, Padfoot.

"Hullo," said Sirius.

_Why have you woken me?_ asked Padfoot.

_Let sleeping dogs lie,_ thought Sirius.

"Because I had no other choice," said Sirius.

_Because you could think of no other choice,_ said Padfoot.

"But this is the right choice, isn't it?" asked Sirius. For a moment, it seemed as if Padfoot would not reply.

_I think so,_ said Padfoot at last. He dragged his snuffling wet nose coldly over the side of Sirius's cheek, understanding his scent. Suddenly, Sirius knew they had the same scent, one heavier and doggish, but the essential was unchangeable, just as no one thing was different from another, when it had to do with your_ self._ Sirius laughed a little. It tickled. The dog's rough, wet tongue ran over his cheek and his nose huffed down by his neck and he laughed again. _Can you learn?_

"I can learn anything."

_Perhaps._

"So teach me."

_It isn't about teaching._

Sirius knew that.

"So show me."

_Ah,_ said Padfoot, _you will have four legs, that will be stronger than your own two and your hanging arms could ever hope to be._

"Yes," said Sirius, and he felt powerful down to the muscle of him, where blood hid, and rejoiced.

_And,_ continued Padfoot, _you will have eyes that will see in the deepest, darkest part of the night, where there is no light at all, only darkness._

"Yes," said Sirius, and he thought he could see the world as a pitch black scale, lit only by a firefly or two in the vast expanse of night.__

When, said Padfoot, _you have such power, what will you use it for? My power. What will you use it for?_

"I told you what I'll use it for," said Sirius, smelling the heavy, dogged scent all around, feeling it seep into his pores so that even mum wouldn't be able to scrub the smell out. "You know what I'll use it for. For him."

_Ah,_ said Padfoot, _a pack._

When Sirius woke, or when Sirius fell asleep, he had a tail, bushy and long and enough to make even the largest and proudest of wolfhounds jealous.  



	12. Chapter Ten: Une Epine, Une Etoile

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ **  
Chapter Ten: Une Epine, Une Etoile  
What happens**: Animagi, Animagi, Animagi.  
**Main Characters**: Remus J. Lupin, Sirius Black  
**Subsidiary Characters**: James Potter, Lilly Evans, Peter Pettigrew; Severus Snape, Lucius Malfoy; Professor Voldemort, Professor McGonagall; Etienne Ibert  
**Couples You Will Find In This Fic (Whether You Like It Or Not)**: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin; James Potter/Lilly Evans; Severus wanting Remus's body; a hint or two of Lucius Malfoy/Severus Snape; other relationships of both a homosexual and heterosexual nature  
**Dedication**: This fic is dedicated to **Saiyanhobbit**, my beta, my muse, my inspiration, the one who sent me Sirius/Remus fics until I got back in the mood, the one who did **everything** an **amazing person** would. The reason for that is because **she is an amazing person**. If you want to thank someone for this chapter, she is the one to thank. **THIS CHAPTER TOOK FOREVER. **Please. **Tell me what you think.** I need it. **Really.** I write for myself, but the reason I kept slugging through this chapter was because people seemed **to want to see more**. I need your **love.** Show me the **love**. Thank you. That is all.  
Also, **some of this fic has not been beta-ed.** It has not been beta-ed **so I can get it up to you more speedily, and stop the torture.** A **new, edited version** will be up in a couple of days. **Love**to you all.  
**This is**: **chapter ten** of a **work in progress**. Like all my **works in progress**, it is possible that you will be **waiting** a **very long time** between **installments**, or they could come out **daily** in a **psychotic** and rather **frightening** fashion. **Do Not Worry**! Just take it **as it comes**, and feel free to send me **demanding fan mail **(all **demanding fan mail** should be sent to **MISBEGOTTENMOON@aol.com**) if you feel you've been waiting **an egregiously long time**. **Demanding fan mail** is **annoying** sometimes, but on the whole it makes me feel **incredibly cool**. And **that's what it's all about**, right? **Oh yes**. And I am also **constantly updating** **chapters** that have already been **uploaded**, whenever I find a **hideous spelling error** or a **problem with grammar**. So check back **often**.  
**C&C**: is **demanded**. Or, you know, **desperately longed for**, in a rather **pathetic **sense. Just gimme some of that **good ol' fashioned R&R**, and let me know you actually do want to **see more of my work**.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

**Chapter X: Une Epine, Une Etoile**

"It's no use," Sirius said. His voice was exhausted as his body, as his mind, and as weary as his heart.

"No," James scowled, but his voice no longer held any conviction, "no. Don't say that. We have to keep trying. We just -- we can't quit now, anyway."

"Oh?" Sirius groaned, slumping further into his chair. "Tell me again, Mr. Prodigal Son, why we _can't_ just give it up?"

"Because you'll regret it, for one thing," James said, and Sirius knew he was right, "and we've put too much bloody time and effort into it to give up now, for another." Peter put a hand in front of his mouth to stifle the yawn that threatened to escape, loud and bored and, above all, bone tired. From behind the fall of sandy colored bangs he could see the two heroes sitting, arguing, bickering for lack of anything else to do. They had made no progress. They were stir crazy. It was sink or swim at this point, and they just might give up if the next attempt got them as far as ever. Nowhere.

"Right," Sirius was giving in, as he always did, as he had for twelve consecutive arguments almost identical to the one just now ending, "let's try it again."

"Maybe we should just, you know," Peter suggested, "take a break?" Sirius looked offended at such a suggestion. Peter had known he would. It was the only way to get Sirius to do something -- pretend you yourself didn't think it was such a good idea, after all.  
  
"I wouldn't think of it," Sirius protested, back straightening suddenly, filled with fresh energy and a will stubborn enough for such blind perseverance. James found himself rolling his eyes and smiling, all at once.

"Right," the bespectacled boy said, fumbling about for his wand in a blind sort of way, his mussed hair tumbling forward always into his eyes, "let's-- let's try it again." Didn't matter that it took grown wizards, twelve times more trained and more knowledgeable than they to do this. It had been James's idea in the first place and the other two had agreed because it had been the first real, _good_ idea yet; now, it seemed like blundering foolery, and it was apt to drive them mad at any moment. It was, it seemed, doing no good, for none of them -- not even James, who had a knack for these things; not even Sirius, who had enough conviction to convince a rock it was a tree and a tree it was a man -- could seem to master the potentially simple art of changing what _was_ to something that also _was_, but wasn't the original _something._

Sirius closed his eyes.

_Right,_ he thought, then, on impulse, _change._

_I really, really, really,_ James thought, stuck on that one word in a study-induced delirium, _really, really, really want this to work. Really. _

Peter had given up for this go around. He watched the other two, silent, pensive.

_I mean,_ Sirius found his mind wandering, _what is, is that I love Remus, really, it seems pretty clear, and Dumbledore seemed to get it, and Hector seems to, or seemed to, or something, I don't know, Hector gets a lot. Just like Remus. A little. And what is, is that I really want to do this. I mean. I really do. So what else can I do? James's ideas are always the best. Taking a long time, though, longer than I would have thought. I thought-- who cares what I thought. I really want to do this. I'll do this._

And he found himself continuing. 

_And what is, is that my hand is just a hand. It has blood. And flesh. And bone. Muscle, too, and the webbing between the fingers. But it's just a hand. Just a thing, a lump of atoms. Hair there, too. Hair and flesh and skin and bone and muscle and all the blood on the inside and the way it pumps through the veins to the wrist. It's just a hand. Just my hand. (I held hands with Remus. Used to, all the time. His hand was smaller, always colder, fingers a little thinner and a little shorter. His hand knows what it's doing. It's still just a hand which is just a thing, just a shape, just a disturbance, in the air, of flesh and things, all shoved together. When you really. Think about it, really.) And it's there. Holding my wand, the fingers wrapping around it. I don't remember. I don't remember the spell but it isn't about the spell. Is it? It's about my hand. Start small. Start with the hand. Think, hand, change, hand. No! Don't think that. It's not changing. It's still going to be a hand. With flesh. And blood. And skin. And bone. And hair. All the little hairs, over the surface. And the muscle. And everything. All the atoms. Only rearranged. But I'm not changing anything. (Matter cannot be created or destroyed.) Just my hand. My hand looking like something else but still being made of the same things as my hand, just my hand, but different, to the eye, which is just an eye. (My lover's eyes are nothing like the... What was that?) Do not change the hand. It's my hand. It'll stay the same. Be something different._

Out of the darkness of his mind, spattered with the memory of light, fractional dust flickering over the backs of his eyelids like a spray of air in the sunshine, he saw a beast coming towards him, and it was him, he knew it was him, even though it didn't look like him. Himself, but rearranged. Anyway, he could tell, because Remus had described his eyes to him once, and these were his eyes, even if they were cast into shadow, of a pale color but with the pupils as the midnight black when there is no light in the world, anywhere. Eclipse black. Moonless black. 

It padded forward on great feet and not for a moment was he afraid as it parted the air around it's shaggy form, a great big beast that was only a puppy, all bark and no bite, or a little bite, but only where it really counted. Sirius smiled a bit but not with his mouth, with his eyelids. It was a smile felt and not shown, not seen. The beast woofed a breath of air into his nostrils; he imagined himself doing the same thing, in return. Then they were kind of laughing. Kind of shaking hands. Kind of saying hello, nice to meet you, even though they'd known each other forever; themselves, each other reversed, themselves but not quite. The dog -- for it was a dog, a terribly grim looking creature -- was named Padfoot. But Sirius didn't know how it was he knew that.

_Hullo,_ Sirius thought.

_Just a hand,_ Sirius thought.

_So it never has to _change_, _Sirius thought.

"Bloody hell," Peter said. It was the first and last time anyone heard him curse.

When Sirius looked down at his hand, he found that it was a hand, but it was not a hand; his hand, perhaps, with flesh and bone and hair, muscle and skin and blood, but it seemed to be a paw, a great, black, familiar paw that could be as silent as it padded forward as the most quiet of nights. It came from his wrist, his boy's wrist, neatly and confidently. He nearly laughed. He nearly screamed. What he did was speak, voice hushed, as James looked on in silent disbelief.

"Go back, would you?" 

He believed his hand was a boy's hand once more.

And it was.

Voldemort folded his arms behind his back, moving with ease alongside the less graceful but more firm footsteps of the Malfoys' man Dobbins, watching his counterpart in bemused silence.

"You see," he had said, very clearly at the beginning of the conversation, "I have no delusions of grandeur. Either I will take power or I will not."

"Take power over what?" Dobbins had asked.

Voldemort had shown him.

In the way of most human minds, Muggle or not, Dobbins had blocked it out, had decided he did not see what he had been shown, had closed his eyes and his mind to the sight and was now thinking of roses, gardening shears in hand. Voldemort had known this would happen. He was amused. Now, they walked in silence, and Dobbins looked, above all else, perfectly content. Voldemort refused to shatter such contentment, even if it was something that made his stomach churn in peeved indifference.

This was the way men were. It was why Voldemort was and was not a people person.

"We've 'ad beautiful roses, this year," Dobbins was saying. Voldemort nodded. 

"As I can see," he murmured. All around the garden there was a bloom of color, vivid in the sunlight. It was precious, and it contrasted deliciously with the cold lifelessness of the Malfoy Manor, just as Dobbins was the exact opposite of its Pureblood residents.

"There were rains," Dobbins went on, "heavy, an' I thought f'r a while, they weren' goin' t'pull through. But they 'ave, now, wonderfully. The 'eavier th'rain, I always say, th'more beautiful the bloom."

"The more beautiful the bloom," Voldemort said, his smile thin, "the more beautiful it looks in the sunlight."

"Funny 'ow that happens, sir," Dobbins said. There was silence in reply, only the sound of the sunlight on the roses, and his own boots in the dirt. He hesitated in his steps; lifted his head; looked around. He was alone, but he did not feel alone. "Sir?" Again, silence, though the roses were laughing. "Blimey, if I don' know 'ow 'e manages t'do tha'." 

Dobbins shook his head. The Master's special guest would return when it was time to prune the buds. He always did.

He met the black dog again the next day. It was 'met' in the sense that he saw the beast, and the beast saw him, and they spoke as only they could, through a puffing of breath and a beating of hearts and a rustling of fur and air over skin.

_Hello,_ said the black dog, Padfoot.

"Hullo," said Sirius.

_Why have you woken me?_ asked Padfoot.

_Let sleeping dogs lie,_ thought Sirius.

"Because I had no other choice," said Sirius.

_Because you could think of no other choice,_ said Padfoot.

"But this is the right choice, isn't it?" asked Sirius. For a moment, it seemed as if Padfoot would not reply.

_I think so,_ said Padfoot at last. He dragged his snuffling wet nose coldly over the side of Sirius's cheek, understanding his scent. Suddenly, Sirius knew they had the same scent, one heavier and doggish, but the essential was unchangeable, just as no one thing was different from another, when it had to do with your_ self._ Sirius laughed a little. It tickled. The dog's rough, wet tongue ran over his cheek and his nose huffed down by his neck and he laughed again. _Can you learn?_

"I can learn anything."

_Perhaps._

"So teach me."

_It isn't about teaching._

Sirius knew that.

"So show me."

_Ah,_ said Padfoot, _you will have four legs, that will be stronger than your own two and your hanging arms could ever hope to be._

"Yes," said Sirius, and he felt powerful down to the muscle of him, where blood hid, and rejoiced.

_And,_ continued Padfoot, _you will have eyes that will see in the deepest, darkest part of the night, where there is no light at all, only darkness._

"Yes," said Sirius, and he thought he could see the world as a pitch black scale, lit only by a firefly or two in the vast expanse of night.__

When, said Padfoot, _you have such power, what will you use it for? My power. What will you use it for?_

"I told you what I'll use it for," said Sirius, smelling the heavy, dogged scent all around, feeling it seep into his pores so that even mum wouldn't be able to scrub the smell out. "You know what I'll use it for. For him."

_Ah,_ said Padfoot, _a pack._

When Sirius woke, or when Sirius fell asleep, he had a tail, bushy and long and enough to make even the largest and proudest of wolfhounds jealous.

Lucius had nice arms, graceful arms, the arms of a dancer, perhaps, or the arms of a very well-practiced killer. They were the arms of a boy who was proud of and secure in his position. Severus had stronger arms, a little thicker and a little more firm, but despite that, it was obvious by the way they held each who was in control of whom.

When they kissed Severus felt awkward because Lucius wished him to; the grasp the pale blond boy had over Severus's very emotions was something wthout magic, but with a great deal of powerful skill, behind it.

Severus had two escapes: the library, which was filled with musty and comforting old books, in which he could bury himself without much trouble beneath dust and in shadow, and the rose garden, which had its own, full-of-life smell. He would walk through the winding but perfectly hedged in pathways, feet crunching on gravel sometimes and padding over dirt others, and he saw the thorns with the blooms, and decided that meant something very important, indeed. The Malfoy estate, just as the Malfoy mansion, was greater, grander, on a larger and more impressive scale than the Snape grounds and house. It was something that galled Severus's mother to no end, but allowed, at least, for Severus to do a bit of exploring, on his own, whenever he wished to get away.

"Do you enjoy the Rose Garden, as I do, Severus?" Severus's skin began to crawl. The roses shrank away, then drew closer, afraid of the fire that burned within Liam d'Or Voldemort's body, but desperate for the warmth it gave, despite the rage of the flames.

"I enjoy it," Severus murmured, voice clipped, "but whether it is as you do, is a question of much dispute." Voldemort threw back his head, tossed up to the sky a laugh that made even the roses shiver, and Severus turned his face away, unable to meet it with even the sourest of frowns.

"Why must you be so disagreeable?" Voldemort shook his head and made a disappointed sound that would have had anyone else cowering in fear. Severus shrugged apathetically. 

"Does it matter?"

"Perhaps," Voldemort murmured thoughtfully, the laughter fading, "mm. Perhaps not." He fell into step at Severus's side as would a queer sort of shadow, elongated into the whisper of a monster in the midday sunlight, echoed in every one of Severus's footsteps. "What brings you outside on such a lovely day?" It seemed to Severus that Voldemort had just made a joke. He did not laugh.

"I wanted to take a walk," he answered half-truthfully. The last part he wished to add-- "alone" -- he bit back, though he could tell Voldemort knew it had been pointedly intended.

"I'll find out soon enough," Voldemort drawled lazily, "what it is that will win you over. Fame? Power? Love? All these can be bought. All these are petty cards, stored up my sleeve. All these can be used to buy men and sell them again later. It is in your nature, to want. I see it in your eyes, where the others care not to look. You have hungry eyes, Severus. I can feed you with what it is you hunger for. I can use your power and in turn make you _very_ powerful."

"No," Severus replied flatly.

"Either it will take Lucius Malfoy to buy you," the man with the chilling jade eyes murmured bemusedly, "or it will take Remus Lupin, but I _will_ buy you, and have you as planned. You would do well not to trust me, but to believe this, and resign yourself to it."

"I think I'll wait," Severus returned with a poker player's implacable calm, "to see what else you've got to offer." A little breeze came up; the bitterness inspired in Severus's gut felt justified. He picked up his pace, and found he had brought himself to a shaded underpass beneath an archway of oak trees.  
  
Shadows could not exist, not in the darkness of the cooling shade. They needed light to play off of, to swallow.

Severus knew Voldemort had gone without needing to turn and see. Still, he could not help but make sure. His eyes flickered about, careless, but wary beneath that carelessness. He found, to his unsteady half pleasure, that he was alone.

When James saw Prongs the first time, he knew him already, from hoof to horn. And it was just that simple, really; and just that glorious. The creature was the color of coffee and cream and had eyes the color of a snail's shell in the moonlight, just as soft and just as downy sweet. But there was also power in the sinewy muscles beneath the soft, crushed velvet coat, and such strength in the stamping, snorting of its hooves.

"Wow," James murmured, swallowing thickly, and he thought for a moment that he heard a prancing laughter like hoofbeats upon the air. 

_I would have thought you'd be the first,_ Prongs said, snorting breath from flared nostrils, _but Padfoot is here already._

"Never underestimate Sirius," James replied, and wondered later how he knew exactly what Prongs had meant.

He just -- had.

Prongs butted his wet, soft nose against James's hand as they scented each other out upon the air, testing and learning and getting acquainted in the batting of an eyelash or two. James had the distinct impression that they had met before but he wasn't sure where or when. It didn't matter, he knew, as the silken feel of that fur rubbed against his cheek, and he felt himself seeing through Prongs's eyes.

Everything was a land of silk.

He felt powerful as he recalled himself in dreams where he won things, defeated monsters and returned home to a crowd cheering his name.

When he ran the world passed beneath his feet -- hooves -- faster than he ever thought was possible, like some sort of amusement park ride, only faster, and better. It was sort of as if he were on a broomstick, with all the wind his hair and the world rushing past but then, it was connecting with the ground also, nothing so light as flying. Feet solidly on the ground, only pounding so fast he felt as if he'd take off. It was better than flight, lack of it but joy of it all at once.

It was being complete in a way he didn't even feel when he was with Lily, laughing with her, though it felt as sweet, and he didn't think he could categorize the two things the same way. Lily was Lily and Lily completed him with things he did not possess, himself.

Prongs was Prongs, a half of himself that truly _was_ himself, and filled confused hormonal spaces with the power of a mythical beast.

Peter was the last. 

And it only went to show the nature of things, he thought, when he found that Wormtail had curled around his shoulder like some sort of shadow and was nibbling at his ear, to catch his dreaming attention. When Peter didn't respond, Wormtail bit with sharp incisors; a scar that was to last Peter his life, and he winced, trying to swipe the creature off his shoulder.

There was no epiphany.

There was no bright flash of light.

There was only a sense of bitterness, like blood, like bile in his throat, that James would rave about the power of the stag and Sirius would exclaim over the wonder of the great black canine, and this was what Peter's destiny was to be.

"I'm a rat," Peter said, his voice blank, his eyes blanker.

_No,_ Wormtail murmured slyly, _I am._

"Peter's a stag."

_Prongs is._

"And Sirius is a dog."

_...so is Padfoot._

"And I'm a bloody rat?"

_Do you know what rats can do? They can get in and out of places unseen, they can find and bite and poison, they can live for ages where no one can find them. They're necessary. Very, very necessary, and very overlooked. That way, no one notices, and no one mentions, and no one suspects._

And it only went to show the nature of things, Peter thought, that James was the leader and Sirius was the passion and Remus was who it was all for, and he himself was only necessary, in that unnoticed, unmentionable sort of way.

"We did it." Sirius's eyes were bright with some sort of internal fire that had long since been quelled, and seeing it once more aflame meant there was hope yet, indeed. Hector watched him and his two friends from over his mug of tea and thought that this boy, this Remus, must be quite the spirit, to inspire such friendship and such devotion. 

The summer had passed quickly, with Sirius, James and Peter applying themselves heatedly to the task at hand, occasionally finding their way into the cool shade of Hector's cottage for a break of tea and cake. For a while, it had seemed rather hopeless, and Hector, though he didn't know quite what it was they were trying to do, saw that whatever it was, it was failing. He let them settle themselves into comfortable but dejected silence in his kitchen chairs, and lent them a sympathetic ear where the need lay, and found himself growing rather depressed in the hopelessness of the situation. Whatever it was. But the determination of those three boys gave Hector above all hope, Sirius the passion behind it all, James the calculation and the reason, and Peter -- a small boy, and quiet, with secretive gray eyes -- seemingly going along for the ride. They had faith, intense faith, and Hector fed them sweets and gave them a cool place to stay and an understanding presence for them to collapse in, and waited.

"You did?" Hector couldn't help it, felt his eyes sparkle and his hands still on a blueberry scone, only half finished. Sirius had been too excited to eat, nearly leaping from his chair at every creaking sound the house made. Finally, he had burst forth with the news, unable to hold it back any longer. At the moment, he didn't even trust the shaking of his own hands with the task of holding his cup of tea. "Well, of course you did," Hector continued, lips twitching wryly, "it was obvious you were _going_ to; the question, simply, was _when_." 

"I don't have time for _when_," Sirius grumbled, though whatever annoyance he was trying to produce melted into that huge grin and those deeply sparkling eyes and failed miserably. "I just, I _had_ to, and we've done it, and he won't be alone anymore, not when _we_ can help it." He chanced a bite of his slice of pound cake, nearly dropped it, and managed to get it from fork to lips without much further fumbling. "S'rry," he muttered around the mouthful, still beaming from ear to ear.

"We don't know _anything_ yet," James murmured, his brow furrowed, light blue eyes still pleased behind his glasses. He looked proud, very much so, as if he'd thought through the most excellent of plans that was only just about to be put into motion. "The summer isn't over yet, we haven't even _shown_ Remus, we don't even _know_ what it means..."

"Oh, come _on_," Sirius muttered, throwing him a dark look, "you're starting to sound like Lilly. How couldn't it work-- _why_ wouldn't it work?"

"We just don't know yet," Peter piped up, shrugging faintly, "that's all he's saying. And it makes sense," he went on, poking at his own slice of cake with his fork, "because Remus was pretty upset, after all, and how do we know this is what he wants?" Hector watched Sirius's face fall, a darkness, pained and ancient, creep into his eyes at the words, and frowned just slightly at the strange sense of power Peter seemed to get from the expression. The sandy-haired boy's features changed subtly, but there was a gleam to his eyes that seemed to be rather proud, a different sort of pride than James's, commanding Sirius's emotions so easily.

"It'll work," Sirius muttered, scowling down at his plate. He'd lost his appetite suddenly, and couldn't get it to come back -- an unusual occurrence. He swallowed back a strange sickness in his stomach, and plowed on fearlessly. "It has to work. This is-- why else would we be-- I mean, no one else has ever been-- _this_ young, it's _got_ to be..."

"Shh," James warned, eyes dark and frowning, but whether it was at Sirius's carelessness or Peter's sudden exhibition of not malicious intent but perhaps malicious outcome was unclear. Sirius fell quiet, Hector watching him for a moment more before he forced a cheery smile.

"Well," he said brightly, "at least you have somewhere to start, and that's more than most people do. Besides -- whatever it is you three've been doing, you seem to have worked _incredibly_ hard on it, and I'm sure that this Remus will understand that." His eyes twinkled. "If he's really so wonderful as you say, then no doubt that understanding will simply be enough. Much more so, with the addition of whatever plan it is that's been put into effect. Now," he went on, watching the three with cheerful eyes that belied thoughtful contemplation, a deep study of each of the three boys. The lofty air was turning from summer to fall, and they would be all three off to school again. Perhaps, Hector realized, this might be the last time he'd get a chance to do as such, to weigh in each boy's character, and store it for future events. "It's about time to clear the dishes, who's with me?"

The light in Sirius's eyes was reward enough for any sort of foolish hope given. He went to the dishes with a fervor and a passion one normally never displayed for household chores, James and Peter rolling their eyes and Hector harboring a secret smile.

_Ah! réponds a ma tendresse,  
Ver-se-moi, ver-se-moi, l'ivresse!  
Réponds a ma tendresse, réponds a ma tendresse  
Ah! ver-se-moi, ver-se-moi, l'ivresse_

Samson! Samson! je t'aime!

Dalila had sung that song with such bitterness, such pain, and Remus had never understood how -- or had never articulated, or truly placed, why -- something so beautiful could be so terribly sad. Music itself, he had never cared much for, but in the night he remembered his mother's voice, and now, through the hot summer months, he dreamed of darkness and of her pale, moon-like touch, and he wept.

When summer came closer and closer to an end, and the school year drew near, Etienne found his son in a curl against the window, fingers pressed to the windowpane, eyes dark as a night before the snow, when the coming clouds wreathed the moon in white.

He had aged in a way Etienne thought he understood, a weariness to his face and a thinness to the lines of him that rid him of babyfat and gave adult cuts to his bones. It was not that he looked old, for he was still small and unassuming and hardly a presence, but it was that he looked mature, in a troubling way.

"Remus, comme un loup-garoux, tu as l'air de tristesse."

_Ah! Réponds a ma tendresse_

"Je suis un loup-garoux, papa. J'ai l'air de tristesse."

_Verse-moi, verse-moi, l'ivresse_

It was the truth, lingering like music on the air between them. 

Etienne felt small, and Remus felt as if he might burst.

Spaces, lines, bones and flesh all merged into something painfully gray, unimportant in the darkness of the night.

For the first time in many years, Etienne knelt down by his son and took him into his arms, holding him close against his chest, tucked underneath his chin.

"I don't know what he did to you," he whispered helplessly, "I don't know what he did, but if it were in my power, I'd do to him what he deserves for hurting you so. The fool. We are all fools, Remus; look past the words, past the actions. Look to the meanings behind them. Look to the love, or to the hate, but look to that first." He swallowed, stroking his son's hair. "Don't, don't think that a child, a boy, does things in foolishness that should scar for a lifetime. Let it pass. Let it all, pass."

"Il n'a pas fait rien," Remus replied, his voice dark and deep, "il me deteste. Parce que je suis..."

And no more needed to be said.

That night Remus dreamed troubled things in the curve of his father's arms, like a crescent moon cradling him. He dreamed of a dog he knew only in his dreams, deep and shaggy black, pressing its nose into the crook of his neck and scenting him, loving him, begging his forgiveness, whining deep in his throat. And he dreamt of a stag with a coat the color of gold in the moonlight. And he dreamt of a rat, which was quiet and gray and pale against the ground, who wove lies with its paws over the mossy dirt.

Peter left Sirius's house one bright morning to go home, to spend time with his mother before school was to start. James stayed on two extra days, watching his friend, studying him, trying to understand. 

After dinner they sat on the 'Wharf,' as Sirius called it, something Michael and Orion had made a while back: thick plankwood jutting out into the depths of the great, foaming river that rolled brown and dark past the Black home, out back behind Aquila's garden.

James thought for a while about what he'd do without Lilly for so long, but something didn't seem to click. In the first place, he realized at last as he toyed with a splinter of wood, he wouldn't have done something so foolish in the first place. Then again, he'd never had cause to feel so threatened before, that he might have to lose her.

"You're wondering why I did it," Sirius said lazily, as if speaking to the stars. James looked over to him slowly, the profile of his face outlined in nighttime shadows.

"Guess so," James replied. "I think I understand. I think, I thought you were smarter than that."

"It isn't that I don't love him," Sirius murmured, sighing deeply. Above him a great cloud of smoke rose. He was, James noticed from the sight and the smell in the air, smoking one of Michael's fags; either he'd stolen it from Michael's room or the older boy had encouraged the pastime, thinking it amusing, or perhaps cute. The Black boys -- men? -- were hard to understand, and therefore yet harder to ever talk to.

"You don't know what love is, Sirius," James interjected quickly, "you're too young for that."

"_You_ don't understand," Sirius said, with a wry grin in his voice. "Remus is different from anyone else. You can't do anything with half a heart about him; you can't just _like_ him, 'cause he isn't going to just _like_ you. You either-- you either love him, or nothing at all."

"So then why?"

"Because I thought-- well, look at Snape," Sirius said, scowling, "slimy bastard, he is, but the point is he's _smart_, smart like Remus is, smart like I'm...not," he finished lamely, lifting his hands in the air. He spread his fingers wide, watching the stars through the interstices, trying not to think of the world at hand, only the stars. For a moment he figured, maybe this was the sort of thing Remus was trying to do, when he looked at the sky: just lose himself, in it.

"I should think you knew Remus better than that," James said carefully, watching the lines of those boy-broad palms, palm in the moonlit darkness.

"They were laughing together," Sirius whispered, "they were laughing, together, d'you know how hard it is to make Remus laugh?"

"Yes," James stated bluntly.

"So then you've gotta understand." Sirius turned his head, then, to try and catch James's pale blue eyes with his own, darker ones. A great shadow seemed to lie between them, as if he were suddenly watching a James from the future, taller and wiser and stronger than he was every day at school, putting forth the wild and uncultivated potential of his mind to use in simple pranks. This James was thinking, long and hard, mulling it over in contemplative silence.

"I understand," James said finally, suddenly small again. "I understand why you did it, but I'm not agreeing with how and I never will."

"I never asked you to do that," Sirius said, "I just wanted to make you see what it was, _why_ it was..." They fell silent for a little while, Sirius taking a long puff on the fag and James watching him, so much larger than life and yet so young, yet. James had the crazy illusion that he would always be this little boy, confused and emotional and easily angered, loyal and faithful and loving like a puppy, even when he was an old man.

Too often James had thought about the future, though Divination had never been his strong point. Peter was never with them in his imaginings, and the thought of him was always clouded with some strange feeling of hate, not James's own, that made him feel a little ill. Lilly was sort of an orange flash, one he couldn't quite discern, as he if he were catching her in motion through a mirror, but her presence was always there. Sirius was beside him, of course, as Sirius was always beside him and there was a smile on Sirius's face that always suggested Remus was there, though James and the small boy were not quite close enough for him to be seen. He was merely a scent, a warmth, upon the air.

Too often, in such thoughtful moments, James found his wish to see more fade away into a confusing nothingness, and let such dalliances go. Better to live, he decided, here and now; not quite as much as Sirius would, unthinking of the repercussions, but the boy had the right idea.

And if he ever matured, the idea would mature, as well. James could at least be sure of that.

"You wanna try?" Sirius asked, holding out the glowing cigarette, breaking through James's wall of silence suddenly. James blinked, widely, clearing his eyes, and found himself lying on rough wood in the comfort of a dark night. The smell of cigarette smoke hung heavy upon the air; half of him wanted to cough, half of him wanted to wrap up in the daring of that smell.

"No," James said, "thanks, though." Sirius shrugged awkwardly from his position and took another drag, fingering the necklace he still wore as his treasure from the past, his hope for the future. They were silent that way until Aquila called them in with a scolding but understanding tone, when it was time for bed.

Etienne watched his son walk before him, weighted down with his old suitcase and his bookbag filled with books for the coming year, and felt as if, could he follow the boy, he would. But Remus was strong enough on his own. There was nothing, now, that Etienne could do, save watch that bobbing head golden in the sunlight, moving ever more quickly away from him.

Remus turned, looked over his shoulder for a moment, and did not smile.

"Au revoir," he murmured, not loud enough for Etienne to hear. Still, he knew his son well enough to know what he had said.

"Good bye," he corrected, and lifted his hand to wave. Remus squared his shoulders, believed the stone was not stone, and disappeared to Etienne's sight, melting through the brick upon brick.

As if he really were that unreal.

Remus took a deep, steadying breath, clutching the handle of his suitcase so tightly that his knuckles turned white. Here, there were no familiar faces to turn to, and there was nowhere to hide. It had been a long time since he'd felt this way, _this_ isolated, _this_ numbingly alone.

Sirius saw him the second he stepped onto the platform, and James had to hold tight to his arm to keep him from leaping after him.

"You'll scare him away," James chided, and Sirius tensed, but fell still. "Remember what we had planned," James went on, softening. He knew Sirius too well to be impatient with him.

"So where is she?" Sirius asked, the lowest of whines echoing in his voice, though he checked it before it became too apparent.

"She's here, she's here," came Lilly's voice from behind them, sounding half-amused and half-aggravated, "and now she knows why she was sneezing all the way to the station. Really, don't you know it isn't polite to talk about people behind their backs?" Had it been any other day Sirius would have cocked his head to the side, would have offered up that cheeky grin, would have said in that indefatigable way he had, 'So step up a little closer, and I'll say it to your face.' But it wasn't any other day, and Sirius was too nervous to feel. Even Peter had felt some odd sort of pity for the loud, over-zealous boy, and hadn't played on worried anticipation.

"We were just going things over," James explained, darting a glance over to Sirius. "If anyone can talk to him, it's you." That in itself stung Sirius deeper than any blow yet, but he tried not to show it, running his fingers through his hair and fidgeting. 

"You can trust me," Lilly said, lifting herself up on the balls of her feet to scan the crowd intently, "so stop looking as if you're going to the gallows." She dropped back down with a light shrug and shook her head, worrying at her lower lip. "Is it really true? All of this? I can't believe you bloody left me out, you know; James Potter, I will have your hide!"

"It's really true," Peter said calmly, eyes seeming too empty in the bright sunlight. Lilly blinked over at him, then flashed a freckled sort of grin at him and shrugged. Her expression was tough, wry.

"Of course it is. Probably James's stupid idea followed along by Sirius's stupid desperation and your" She shrugged faintly, almost apologetically, then, "There he is."

Anxiety clenched in Sirius's stomach, caused his heart to leap a little higher, and then plummet agonizingly into his gut. James rested a hand gently on his shoulder, then stooped to pick up his things, motioning for Peter to do the same.

"Let's go," he instructed softly, and Sirius managed to focus his eyes on his suitcase beside of him, rather than employing them to scan the crowd eagerly for the sight of that sun-burnished hair. Had Remus been eating properly? Of course not. Had he been holing himself up in his room, reading the summer away, growing more pale than Hogwarts allowed him to get? As sure as he knew Remus, Sirius knew that had to be true. Were there new scars? That last thought made him shudder -- wounds had been made, no doubt, and Sirius hadn't been there to ease them away, to kiss them and feel them with his lips. There was so much about Remus, he realized painfully, that he had yet to learn, and not only in the map of his body, the expanse of scars and pain that showed through above the skin. Whatever lay deeper would be harder to understand, much more so, and Sirius knew that if he only had the chance, then he wouldn't fail. But if he'd already been given the chance, if he'd already lost it without even beginning - that was a possibility that he wasn't yet strong enough to bear.

"Right," he murmured, eyes darkened, more mature than James had ever seen them, "let's just, get out of here."

"You'll tell us everything afterwards, of course?" James leaned forward to place a kiss on Lilly's cheek, which, despite her annoyed tone, she did not shirk away from. In fact, she had to admit, it was nice to feel James's hand resting lightly on her shoulder, something more daring in touch than she was used to him displaying. Especially, in such a crowded forum.

"Mm," she snorted, shrugging, "we'll see."

"Thanks," James murmured, his lips tugged upwards into something too good-natured to be a smirk, but far too sly to be a smile. "Make me proud."

"Oh shut up and sod off," Lilly muttered, doing her best to scowl at him. Still, that expression was too contagious for even Lilly to look discouraging, and James knew it. With a torn expression, Lilly watched the other three leave, and then shook her head, snorting again. Frankly, part of her was nervous, for she knew how much this meant to James, much less to Sirius, that they had worked so hard. There was a jealous part of her, but she discarded it for the foolishness she knew that it was as soon as it began to creep into her chest. To feel anything other than proud of them was to be absolutely foolish. They were thoughtless, Sirius and James, oddly selfish in a very childish way, and to expect to be included in whatever it was they were doing at the time, was to expect far to much.

Therefore, she turned her attention elsewhere, holding her two bags at either side, scanning the crowd once more for that tousled, familiar head. Once found, she made straight for it, pushing her way through the sea of students, ones she recognized and ones that were absolutely unfamiliar, until she was trotting along behind Remus. She knew, as she sometimes simply knew things, that Remus knew she was there, but for a while, swamped by the loud sounds of youth at its finest, she remained silent.

Then,

"Did you have a nice summer, Remus?" Her voice sounded calm, and perfectly cool. Her nerves steadied themselves, and she suddenly felt in her element, as if nothing could keep her from attaining her goals.

"Mm. I did. you?" Remus tilted his head to meet her eyes, as if he was trying to search out some hidden secret there. But Lilly's eyes were deep and green and he couldn't read in them anything other than the usual power and determination, and goodwill. His brow furrowed.

"It was all right," she said flippantly, shrugging. Her orange hair bounced against one shoulder, looking fiery as it swayed in the wind. "You know, could've been better." Her tone was so easy, Remus noted, and for a moment he felt strangely jealous, and utterly alone.

  
"I'm sorry," was all he said.

"Doesn't matter, now. It's over. C'mon," she finished casually, "let's go get seats." In Remus's eyes, which were deep and dark and more hunted than they had ever been, and he opened his mouth to refuse. "Two seats," Lilly added hurriedly, "a private car." She could see Remus hesitate, could see the conflicting emotions at war in his expression, and wanted to reach out to touch him, to just tell him it would be okay, in the end. But she didn't think touching him would help, not for a second.

"two seats?" Remus asked finally, his voice quiet and unreadable.

"Just two seats," Lilly assured him.

"All right," he said, shifting, drawing himself up a little higher. Not for the first time, Lilly had the almost irresistible urge to find Sirius Black and punch him right in his stupid face, but she fought it, and finally pushed it down, merely trotting onto the Hogwarts Express, Remus in tow. One task at a time, she reminded herself, and her resolution was set without the possibility of sway.

They moved down the aisles, some seats filled, other cars not as private as she would have liked, until they came to a car that was completely empty. As if Remus could sense Lilly's thoughts before she put them into speech, he slipped through one sliding door, holding his suitcase in one hand, the door for the girl in his other. Lilly softened. She'd always liked Remus, the soft-spoken yet ultimately thoughtful way he did things, the way he always did things for others before he did anything for himself. 

"Thanks," Lilly murmured, "here, I'll get your things." Even she was taller than Remus, now, who had grown, but barely another half-inch, over the entire summer. She wondered for a moment how he'd really been keeping himself, but now was not the time to pry, or make him feel in any way defensive. The more comfortable he felt about talking to her the easier all of this was going to be. 

"thanks," Remus echoed, and offered her a distracted smile as he sat, hands folded neatly in his lap. Baggage stowed, she flopped down across from him, puffing out a long, deep sigh. A few silent moments passed. Lilly leaned over to the door, and slid it shut.

"Now let's really talk," she said, her eyes sparkling like grass and gold filtered through a mirror made of diamonds, and Remus found he could not speak. 

"What's she saying?" Sirius pressed himself closer against the wall, frowning faintly. 

"Shh," James hissed, giving him a light shove. "If you keep quiet, you'll be able to hear better." He fiddled with something in his hand, then scowled.

"I told you altering the Sonorus spell wouldn't work," Peter said, but the other two weren't listening to him. He shrugged, and went back to finishing his assigned reading; if they decided not to take his help, then they decided not to take his help, and they could deal with it on their own. No doubt, they'd succeed, as they always did, but it would be nice if, just for once, they'd listen to his advice, and save all the trouble in between the idea and the realization of it.

"You said," Sirius began, and James glared at him.

"Quiet," he snapped, then went back to muttering something under his breath, the finishing touch to all their plans. Through the wall, the sound of Lilly's voice snapped and fizzed and faded out, then flared up again, as if it were coming to them from an old radio. Remus could barely be heard; then again, Sirius could assume, he wasn't yet given the chance to have much else to say.

"Right," Sirius muttered, frowning sheepishly. Peter glanced up from his reading, rolled his eyes, and settled back down.

It was going to be a long ride.

"I don't understand," Remus said blankly.

"Of course you don't, you're not listening close enough," Lilly said, but her tone was patient, hardly exasperated. Yet. "I wasn't included in on this. Of course. Because they're bloody stupid, if you haven't noticed, those three gits. But they spent the entire summer together -- or, most of it, anyway -- at Sirius's house, working on this, for you. Not supposed to be doing even half of it, what with it being summer, and them using magic every day; I'm surprised James decided to go through with the plan, I thought he was smarter than to do something so foolish as could get him expelled. But they spent as much time as they weren't spending eating or sleeping working on this, it was all Sirius's idea to begin with, you know, so they could-- for you."

"Animagi."

"Don't know how they bloody well did it, either," Lilly went on, her eyes glittering brightly, "but they did, and it's bloody amazing even if it is bloody stupid. I've come to expect as much, I should think you have, too. There've never been Animagi as young as they are, did you know that -- of course you knew that -- not in the entire history of the wizarding world, and I don't think there ever will be, either. There's something to be said about being stubborn idiots who don't think of others, in the end, isn't there?"

"They're"

"Animagi, yes," Lilly cut in, toying with a lock of her hair. "It's dumb luck, I said, it isn't possible, but then James showed me, andwell, the rest, that's for you to see, after all. But it-- it's the bloody truth, completely impossible, completely insane, they are, but as I said, dumb luck can get you anywhere. Point is," Lilly continued, drawing in a deep breath, "the point is, Sirius was driven half out of his mind without you and he's done this for you. Stupid as he is and pathetic as he is and completely hopeless as he is -- well, I think the bloody prat adores you, and I think you adore the bloody prat, as well. So I'm hoping their summer hasn't gone to waste. Well, their original intention for the summer, in any case. You should just, you should see him, Remus." Lilly's voice had grown more serious, trying less, now, to prove a point, and more to just describe that emptiness in Sirius's eyes. "You should just see the way he looks, without you. He doesn't look happy. He doesn't look right."

"They told you to do this. To talk to me."

"Yes. But can you blame them?"

"can you blame me?"

The sound of both those familiar voices filled the other car. Sirius leaned back against the seat, listening to Remus's voice echo over the windows and against his skin, knees drawn up to his chest, face buried against them. He felt so small, in this place of being the observer, so much a child.

Then again, he supposed he always was so much of one, never quite mature enough, never quite grown up enough, to understand.

A quiet reverence had filled their car, along with those two voices. The spell James had worked out worked as a bug might have, from the muggle Bond movies. He'd 'planted' it on Lilly when he touched her shoulder, had set it up using the Sonorus charm as a basic skeleton for it, but with a slew of his own alterations and additions. Sirius had, of course, come up with the idea but James was the one skilled enough and insightful enough to carry it through to completion.

Now, Sirius felt ill that he had ever suggested it.

Again, he was shoving his nose where it shouldn't be, invading Remus's ever-important privacy yet again with his rash and foolish decisions.

There was a look of concentration on James's face as he kept the spell in place, listening simultaneously to Lilly flood Remus with information and opinions. A little frown creased his forehead for a moment, but was easily smoothed away, after all the talk about how stupid they'd been. After all, Lilly was absolutely right, and that was what made it so grating to his nerves.

"Turn it off," Sirius whispered hoarsely, shocking James from his concentration. The spell wavered, voices warping, distorting, upon the air.

"What?" Even Peter was surprised, watching Sirius with a perplexed expression.

"Just turn it off, James," Sirius repeated, swallowing down a lump in his throat. "I mean, of course, I want to hear, but I-- can't. Please. James." Again, the sound of those voices dipped and waved and grew faint, as if they were merely whispers heard through a keyhole. James lips quirked into a sudden smile.

"Right," he said, and tapped the wall of their car lightly before he pulled his wand back, tucking it neatly in the folds of his robes. 

"We'll just have to hope Lilly tells us what happened," Sirius said weakly, and then turned his face to the window, and said nothing more.

"No," Lilly admitted softly, "no, I can't blame you." Her voice had grown very serious, and very kind. Remus toyed with a loose thread at the bottom of his sweater, feeling helpless and cold.

"I just don't understand," he murmured after a moment's pause, "I just don't understand. He never promised me anything, but-- but he knew, and he told"

"He was afraid," Lilly replied carefully, trying to form her words so that Remus could see as clearly as she did why Sirius had done something so undeniably stupid, whatever way you looked at it. "He was afraid that he'd lose you, and he thought, if Snape were to be easily prejudiced -- as most Slytherins are -- then he might keep him away from you. Sirius is," and she paused here, frowning, thinking hard, "Sirius is a fool, who loves too much, and feels too much, and acts without thinking and speaks without hearing himself. But what he did, strange as it seems, he did for you, in the end, or thought he was doing for you. It's what's beneath the actions, the words, what drives them all; that's what counts. Especially with Sirius."

"He wasn't going to lose me," Remus said, helpless. So that was it. So, in the end, it came back to laughter in a library, the thought that maybe, it wasn't so hard to make a friend for himself, after all -- for James, and Sirius, and even Peter, had been different; the moment he met them, it was as if here was where he belonged. But a normal, simple, childhood friend. That was all he had wanted. It wasn't easy for him to talk to people. It wasn't easy for him to laugh. 

But there had been that wounded look in Sirius's eyes, when he saw them.

And Remus realized, remembering just then, in the silence of their private car, that he should have known, should have done something, only at the time, he hadn't understood.

"So it's my fault, then," Remus finished off, voice dark. "I should have seen it. I should have understood."

"I think, both of you should," Lilly said quietly, still unsure whether or not she should touch him. "But that doesn't excuse what he did; nothing can. If anything -- you just have to let him make up for it. He worked so hard, and he misses you so."

"I should have known."

"Remus"

"I should have seen it. I should have known."

"Remus." Lilly rested a hand on his shoulder, gently, but firm, and felt him flinch beneath her. She frowned, but hurriedly shrugged it off. "Listen to me, Remus. There's only so much living you can do, lamenting the past. But if there are remedies to be had and pain to be soothed and a life to be lived, then turning your eyes backwards and saying 'why didn't I' or 'what if?' isn't going to help for a second. Too many people are lost in the past when it's the future they should be thinking of; certainly, the present. You didn't know but you know now and I can go get Sirius to come to you or you can go to Sirius but either way, if you just sit here, more time will be wasted, and you'll only have more to regret."

And Remus had never read such wisdom, even in the dustiest of library books.

"So what's it going to be?" It could have been a mere handful of minutes that had passed since Lilly last spoke, or it could have been an hour. Time was strange that way, molded to fit your expectations, or your fears, creeping one moment and flying the next. Remus drew in a deep breath, his throat feeling strangely dry. 

"I don't know," Remus replied carefully, "I don't know, and I'm-afraid, I think."

"You don't have to be."

"Don't I? I don't know what words I should trust. I don't know what I should listen to." He swallowed, thickly, his eyes meeting Lilly's for a moment before he turned them back to his hands in his lap. Normally, when he was with people, he followed his instincts, listened to his heightened senses and believed in scent, in sight, in that insight he had discovered he had, at so early an age. With Sirius, he had simply trusted because he always knew he could trust, because of Sirius's honest, earthy scent and his honest, earthy eyes. Sirius reminded him of a forest, but one that welcomed him home, one that was wildness mixed with humanity, passion with reason, all rolled up into one. In Sirius's arms, even in Sirius's company, he had been safe and cared for and happy, complete, so that he didn't just trust the boy he was with, but himself, as well. As if all the time, that basic human nature he lacked could be found in the bigger boy, who was so painfully human, so wonderfully so. 

And then he had discovered that with human nature came a jealousy all the more terrifying for what it could unconsciously destroy, the ease with which they sat together, the silence in which they could convey any emotion they so desired. All things had rested unspoken and tender between them. 

But perhaps losing such tenderness was also a part of growing older.

Still, it had hurt, in a way Remus had not known anything could. Or, he had perhaps forgotten, or tried to forget, how such deep betrayal could cut swifter and more terribly than any knife might. When Dalila had turned him over, had found his belly with her sharp canine teeth, had taken his youth and ripped in to shreds with the beautiful curse of the wolf, only then had he known betrayal this fierce and this great. And Sirius had promised to protect him from such a thing, and so he had bared his stomach and his neck and his heart to the boy, and had found it all spilled out carelessly upon the ground once more. In the depths of him, he believed that it was his fault, for being so foolish as to trust again, for being so careless as to try with Severus Snape to laugh, for not seeing and therefore interpreting correctly that look in Sirius's eyes.

As if Lilly could somehow read all that flashed through the shadows in Remus's eyes -- and how could she? For she didn't know -- she spoke again, softly, once she had let him fall silent in thought.

"Trusting someone doesn't naturally mean they'll betray your trust, Remus," she soothed, touching his shoulder again. This time, he did not flinch, or shy away from it. "Betrayal runs as deep as love in some places, and it's just-- you just have to-- sometimes you just have to take it for what it is, and leave it behind you. In the past. Where it belongs."

"I know," Remus said quietly, after a few aching seconds passed. "I know that."

"This is his way of apologizing," Lilly went on, as if it wasn't yet obvious enough, "this is his way of trying to put the past into the past. He's found a future for you, perhaps-- perhaps even created one, I don't know, I'm no expert at Transfiguration and certainly not at Divination. But, I do know, that things pass. And if people-care about you, then you-you keep them close, close as you can, because one day, you might lose them."

Silence filled the car again.

Remus thought of what losing Sirius would mean, and discovered the aching pain in his small chest was too great to ever explain. Such hollowness would haunt him in nightmares for years to come.

"I'd like to talk to him," he decided finally. Lilly broke out into a relieved smile, relaxing back into her seat.

"You have no idea what this'll mean to him," she confided.

"I think I do." Their eyes met again, snail-shell brown with forest green. Lilly felt oddly unnerved under that precocious gaze, and shifted faintly, not entirely uncomfortably, in her seat. Remus was unusual, to say the least, nothing like any other boy that ever was or ever would be. He was too wise for his youth and too pained for his age and he knew things just by looking at a person that not even the oldest and most insightful of scholars would ever be able to. It was as if by looking at your eyes he was opening you up, so that everything about you was completely visible and vulnerable to his naked eye.

But, Lilly noted, he didn't have that power over Sirius, which was why this entire mess had happened, to begin with.

Or perhaps, she theorized later, it wasn't that he didn't understand Sirius, but simply couldn't comprehend the love the bigger boy bore for him, why it was so strong, why it was meant solely for him. And that, she decided at last, was what it had to be, for Remus knew Sirius perhaps better than Sirius himself did, and yet still couldn't understand the jealousy and the anger he felt towards Severus Snape for years to come.

"D'you, d'you want me to go now, then?" Lilly asked, uncertain. "And get him, that is," she added.

"Yes," Remus replied, softly, "yes, that would be -- I haven't talked to him in -- please," he finished off lamely, and shrugged, seeming oddly small and helpless for one shown so often to be so sage-wise.

"I won't be long." Lilly blinked down at him. "Thanks, Remus."

"Mm?"

"For not being so stupid, like the others are."

And she was gone.

Lilly slid the door open to see the three most mixed expressions assembled in one place she could have expected. Peter, indifferent and thoughtful; James, anxious and fidgety; Sirius, tortured and nervous. The very air in the car seemed to be stifled, torn betwixt the conflicting emotions.

"Well," she muttered, though it was good-natured, "hail the conquering hero, and all." Sirius straightened in his seat, sitting bolt upright at the noise. James's gaze flickered immediately over to Lilly's face, searching it for any signs of how the talk had gone. Peter slowly, almost lazily, shifted his eyes to Lilly, as well, and rested there for a questioning moment, before he pulled his focus away. "What?" she asked, ruffling. "Doesn't anyone want to know what happened?"

"I know you're not stupid, Lilly," Sirius murmured up at her, "so just tell me, what happened?" Still, he couldn't help but be hopeful, her tone too light for anything to have gone wrong.

"I won't waste time telling you," she admitted softly, looking at Sirius with the sort of kindness she realized suddenly he truly deserved. "Go on, you silly prat, he's waiting for you and you're keeping him." Sirius was on his feet in a second at those words, eyes widening and bright. The tension in the small car slowly eased out of it, blown away by some sunshine breeze. Suddenly, the day seemed sunny, light streaming in through the windows, sun high overhead in the pale blue sky.

"You took that long to tell me?" he cried indignantly, and then he was gone from the room, leaving behind him only the lingering memory of sadness.

"I take it things went well," James murmured. His smile could be felt in his voice, if not seen in his eyes.

"Now we just hope Sirius doesn't screw everything up," Lilly said, only half-joking, and sat next to James to wait.

  
  
  
  
Remus, like a werewolf, you have the air of sadness.  
I am a werewolf, papa. I have the air of sadness.

He didn't do anything. He hates me. Because I'm... 


	13. Chapter Eleven: Un Troup d'Animaux

**Chapter Eleven: Un Troup d'Animaux  
What happens**: Sirius and Remus are reconciled after the incident at the Whomping Willow, and Padfoot, Prongs and Wormtail join the wolf on the night of the full moon. Hell, and there's always that whole "Evil Dark Lord's Rise to Power" thing in there, too.  
**Main Characters**: Remus J. Lupin, Sirius Black  
**Subsidiary Characters**: James Potter, Lilly Evans, Peter Pettigrew; Severus Snape, Lucius Malfoy; Professor Voldemort, Professor McGonagall; Etienne Ibert  
**Couples You Will Find In This Fic (Whether You Like It Or Not)**: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin; James Potter/Lilly Evans; Severus wanting Remus's body; a hint or two of Lucius Malfoy/Severus Snape; other relationships of both a homosexual and heterosexual nature  
**Dedication**: This fic is dedicated to **Saiyanhobbit**, my beta, my muse, my inspiration, the one who sent me Sirius/Remus fics until I got back in the mood, the one who did **everything** an **amazing person** would. The reason for that is because **she is an amazing person.** Also, thank you to everyone who's **reviewed.** You are **nice, wonderful, fantastic people_. _**I love to get **reviews**. I am **shameless** about them. If you're reading this fic, then **please!** Review!  
**This is**: **chapter eleven** of a **work in progress**. Like all my **works in progress**, it is possible that you will be **waiting** a **very long time** between **installments**, or they could come out **daily** in a **psychotic** and rather **frightening** fashion. **Do Not Worry**! Just take it **as it comes**, and feel free to send me **demanding fan mail **(all **demanding fan mail** should be sent to **MISBEGOTTENMOON@aol.com**) if you feel you've been waiting **an egregiously long time**. **Demanding fan mail** is **annoying** sometimes, but on the whole it makes me feel **incredibly cool**. And **that's what it's all about**, right? **Oh yes**. And I am also **constantly updating** **chapters** that have already been **uploaded**, whenever I find a **hideous spelling error** or a **problem with grammar**. So check back **often**.  
**C&C**: is **demanded**. Or, you know, **desperately longed for**, in a rather **pathetic **sense. Just gimme some of that **good ol' fashioned R&R**, and let me know you actually do want to **see more of my work**.****

Chapter XI: Un Troup d'Animaux

It had been a long time since Achille had seen the light of day. He had deep gray eyes, the color of granite, no blacker and no softer, and they were bright and keen, despite the dark surroundings. For a while he had lived upon the edge of dusk, where the sun rose late and slept early, and darkness was to him no problem, no hindrance, at all. Those gray eyes were sharpest in the pitch of night, after all. 

Sometimes, his eyes tracked the path of a rat around the length of his cell. When it seemed near to escaping, Achille would stalk the creature with only his gaze, fleckless and focused, so that its small body and smaller brain knew for a few breathless seconds of pure instinct what fate lay in store for it. His hands, which were by all means bigger than paws, had only one flaw and that was the blunt, broken edges of his fingernails, no good for skewering, for clutching, for rending flesh or fur. But he was alone now, he knew that much, and the only flesh to rend was his own, the only fur to tear at short rat fur. 

The lack of sun was not what bothered Achille, for the sun had never been his friend, and in daylight he was never truly in his element.

No, it was the freedom that he missed, because stretching your legs and truly using them were two different things.

Sometimes, he paced his cell, the length over, watching the bars above him, too high above him for him to even hope to reach, and it was not helplessness he felt, just a calm annoyance at his own, caged self. Sometimes, he did not pace but walked and studied, running broad palms over the line of cold stone upon the walls, feeling the bumps in the texture, feeling the twitch in his muscles. If he were stupid, he would break his flesh to bleeding in an attempt to pry open rock and get himself out. But he was not stupid, he was far from it, and instead he studied the stone and the lack of space between forever-shut door and the length of yet more stone, and felt the rippling of magical wards tingle along his flesh. He was trapped; he had learned that from the second that door slammed shut, had known from the way the sound echoed desolately over the high walls for hours. If even sound could not escape, then Achille Baudouin could not, no matter how strong or sly or skilled he had become.

Now, dark brown hair streaked with gray the slate color of his eyes hung shaggily into his face, and bathed him a pleasant shadow. Now, his nails were broken and dirty, cracked down to the quick, and he barely gave a damn. Now, his knuckles were warped and his muscles less compact, more wiry, but his back was still straight and he sat in aloof silence, would, no doubt, sit that way for the rest of his days. When the moon came, he felt his bones change and his flesh melt and his muscles shift and merge, and he would sit in the center of his cell and howl. The sound he made was loud enough and chill enough for Azkaban to get two of its fireside tale nicknames: Wolf Trap and The Graveyard of the Wind. 

_"If you find yourself in the deepest, darkest corner of the world, where there is no escape and there is never any hope, then you have found yourself in Wolf Trap, devourer of souls," an old woman would say to her young children on a hot summer, with the firelight flickering up to her features and devouring them in craggy shadows, "and there is no rescue, for this is the darkest pit of no-life upon the earth, where punishment has no name and no form, creeping up upon you as would a plague in the depths of night."_

Achille would have laughed, would have shrugged his shoulders, would have listened to the sound of free wind and smiled, just remembering this place.

_"If you find yourself in the deepest, darkest corner of the world, where there is no escape and there is never any hope, then you have found yourself in The Graveyard of the Wind, destroyer of youth," a stony-faced Gypsy would tell a ragtag group of children, their eyes wide and fixed upon her kohl-smeared eyes, "and there is no saving you there, for it is the darkest pit of no-life upon the earth, where shadows have full rule and flesh festers and hands touch you, singing the song of rats in the depths of night."_

But he had to get out of it, in order to look back, to remember.

Most times, he would crack his knuckles in a slow, snapping line, and would then stretch his arms above his head, and would tell stories to himself, or to an audience of rat skulls. Then, he would pull out at the roots a few strands of his long, thick hair, braiding them into what might have been called rope, but was only Wolf Hair. Through their eyeholes he would string the rat skulls, and he adorned his neck with them, as well as his wrists. He would stretch his arms again, above his head, and he would howl a man's howl. He would pace the floors again. He would braid rat spines into his hair when he sat once more, after his legs had been properly stretched. When he moved, his braids clacked, like tongue against teeth clicking, like crows' beaks upon metal bottle caps and broken bits of glass, catching the sunlight. 

What he wouldn't give for a man's weapon, the slick blade of a knife.

He would shave his beard with it, and it would be more comfortable for sleep. 

_In the depths of his not-madness he remembered the girl he had found., once upon the banks of a river, long ago. She knew how to howl, a pure, high howl, rich and thick with the morning dew. She had smelled of dirt and of sunflower seeds and of river water, and Achille had touched her neck with his nose. He did not know her name but he knew when he saw her deep eyes that it meant betrayal, and he thought of her here often as he touched his tired body, and felt his own skin. For what she was she had had the softest hands, and had touched him here, here, here, with the flat of her plump palm. There had been a graveyard with names Achille cared nothing for, and she had tossed back her head and laughed, before she'd disappeared into the woods. _Lupin,_ he had read upon the gravestones, _Lupin_. He wondered if he might find her again, but then one day he had known she was dead, and on that day, when he howled, all the Wolves across the Thousand Seas howled with him, mourning the great loss of a sister._

So maybe, what Achille missed, was his pack. He had had one, once, and he roamed the dark earth with those familiar bodies. One by one they had died, and then he had killed a man when only two others were left, and he had been put here to rot, blood still dripping from his muzzle.

He had licked himself clean, but from then on the place smelled pleasantly of blood, in the dusty corners and on the ragged sheets and upon his own fingers, down beneath his fingernails. Now the smell of rat blood had almost taken all of that over, but there was still the man blood that lay beneath, and sometimes it made him grin.

Still, despite it all, he had perfect white teeth, and they glinted when they caught the moonlight. He grinned like a wildcat and howled like a wolf and moved like a tiger, pacing, pacing circles, within the confines of his cell. From this place he had learned silence when appropriate and hush in his feet and muscles and from this place he had discovered the power of a howl when you put all your own rage into it. That was the only place he felt rage, any longer, in the ululation of a throaty howl. 

_Once, a crow had perched upon the lip of the window above and they had watched each other for a very long time. In fact, this had not been so very long ago. The crow had black, beady eyes, and watched the polished rat skulls glint with a muted interest shown only in its beak's nostrils. He had looked up at the crow. The crow had looked down at him. It was odd, seeing life held elsewhere than in a rat and in himself, the veins that laced and pounded through his wrists; he had very broad wrists, it had been hard as a child to find gloves that would fit him. But he had long fingers, long and thick, and the middle one was as long, or as short, as the ones that flanked it. There were burn scars upon the knuckles of the hand he lifted to the bird, but when he lifted his hand the bird flew away, leaving only crow shit upon the stone as a reminder, as a smell, as a marking. Such markings meant, though, that the one who had left them would be coming back. Achille did not trust crows and he thought perhaps the shit it had left behind was some sort of pointer, some sort of sign, and killed eight rats that day to mask the smell of the fresh droppings._

One day, Achille heard a voice.

"You speak English," said the crow, who woke him from his sleep, dreamless and still. Achille lifted his head and watched the crow for a little while, who had perched in the same place, a spot where crow shit had been once, but wind and rain and snow and time had weathered the memory away.

"I speak a lot of things," Achille replied, resting upon one elbow, the crow watching him watching the crow, "I speak to myself, I speak to crows, I speak to rats before I kill them, I speak to the corners of the room, I speak to the bars of the window. Outside, I speak French. Inside, I speak my own language. I speak with the Wolves, but that is not speech as the world understands it. I speak English, yes," he said, and his braids set up a chorus of laughter as he cocked his chin cockily.

"Would you like to be free?" asked the crow, who shifted in amusement from one spindly red leg to the other, wings lifting and shaking in braid laughter, then settling back against his sides. 

"I have been here a very long time," Achille replied, moving from one elbow to the other but always watching the crow watching him, "and it smells here like rat blood and crow shit and my body if my body truly smelled of old straw and stone and metal and chain, and the burlap which they use for my bed, and the slop which they give me to eat. I'd rather eat rats. I'd rather be free. But I won't go free without knowing the name to call, not just speaking to a crow with no name."

"You are Achille Baudouin," said the crow, "and I am known as many things; as Black Crow; as Scavenger; as Long Legs; as Smallwing; as Crookbeak or Riptalon; as Ratsbane or Mousebreath; yet in those forms I do not speak but caw, as the world sees it, and I dance upon the ground in search of gold. With this speech, I am gold. I am the very name of it. In this form I am Liamcrow, and I am myself, but I am not."

"You certainly talk a lot," said Achille thoughtfully, and he grinned his hyena grin, "for a little crow." 

"I will come again," said Little Crow, and he shat upon the stone once more, and lifted wing, and flew off.

"If I had that many names," Achille said to a rat that trembled in death throes, impaled by one of his blunt-tipped fingers, "I would not know what to call myself in the night, and I would not know what to ask others to call me, and I would leave no markings upon the ground I had walked, and I would find that the trees sung no songs of me. That, perhaps, is stealth. Having so many names, and so little substance." The rat made no sound. It was dead. Achille began to skin it with his chipped fingernails, while two clean rat skulls, eyeless, watched.

Three days later Achille Baudouin did not escape from Azkaban, Wolf Trap, The Graveyard of the Wind. His freedom was bought by a man as trustworthy as gold, with eyes the color of snakeskin, a man who had a Thousand Names to cross the Thousand Seas, and none of them real.

Remus, of course, looked just the same as always, if not a little more haunted, a little more shadowy around the edges. Sirius drunk in the sight of him as would a man stranded for years in a desert, watching him through the window, gathering his courage. Then, he grasped at the handle of the car door, and slid it open. It was obvious Remus had already known he was there, for he only turned slowly, thoughtfully, eyes lifting up to Sirius's face. They were shielded and unreadable, and for a moment, unfamiliar. 

And then, Sirius realized, the boy was terrified.

Sirius didn't even have to think. He catapulted himself forward, ignoring the lurch and the sway of the rocking train, finding himself in Remus's arms, against Remus's chest, exactly where it was he had needed to be for so very long. It didn't even occur to him for a few minutes that he might be crushing the smaller boy beneath him, fingers in his hair, face buried in his neck. When he finally realized he pulled back with a choked little gasp and simply tumbled back against the seat, pulling Remus forward, and up against him. His arms found their way to wrap, strong and warm and tight, around that smaller, more compact frame, and he held Remus close, and he wept.

Just the very scent of him was welcome relief enough; the sight and the feel was too much, and he found that all the apologies in the world, all his need for them, could not bring him to speak. Not then, certainly not then.

Sirius found that he could smell Remus more acutely, could sense little things about the way he felt and the way he smelled and the way he moved that he had not previously noted. Perhaps some awareness, some sense of understanding, had been awoken in Sirius, or simply heightened. He realized, he liked it. 'The better to hold you with, my dear,' but the wry irony of thinking that made him wince.

And, he discovered, Remus was crying, too.

"Don't," he whispered, helpless. He'd only seen Remus cry once before, and then he had been half drunk, and more able to handle it. It hadn't come after all of this. It hadn't come after holding Remus through the night, and understanding him better, and knowing him deeper, and loving him all the more for what he'd uncovered.

"All right," Remus replied, but his voice was thick with the fall of his tears and the tightening in his throat and the words, it was quite obvious, meant absolutely nothing. He had buried his face against Sirius's neck, which was salty and wet now because of it, his fingers clutching in the front of Sirius's t-shirt. 

There was some violently desperate part of Sirius that needed, somehow, to grasp onto the smaller boy and kiss his face and pull him close, but he remained just the way they were for a long time, the both of them shaking with the force of their emotions. Sirius held Remus tight, rocking them both back and forth, the fingers of one hand pressed against the back of Remus's neck, the other at his lower back. It felt right to be close this way once more, right to be curled up around Remus curved up against his chest, but Sirius could feel the wrongness of the air, the aching of it, the sadness in the embrace.

"I'm sorry," he found he was whispering, hot against Remus's ear, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Remus lifted his hands, then dropped them, then lifting them again, wrapping his arms around Sirius's neck. If he could just hide himself here, he thought, where no one could find him, where it would be all warmth and all Sirius's scent, then he would be safe, and the tears would stop. But he had to let himself trust again, had to hear the despair in Sirius's voice, had to say or do something to make this end. Because really, he decided at last, when you really thought about it, Sirius felt more, in that innocent way of his, and therefore hurt more, over all that had happened.

However flawed Remus's logic might have been, it was what he believed, and what he clung to, and it was what he acted on.

He pulled back, wild-eyed, too mindless for thought, and simply sat backwards, hard, against the seat beneath him. His arms tugged lightly at the bigger boy, and Sirius found himself curled up to fit in the smallest of spaces, but it was worth it, his head in Remus's lap, Remus's fingers in his hair. For a long while Remus held him that way, and found that without feeling Sirius shake with tears, it was easier for him to stop. Certainly, Sirius was still crying against his thigh but when he wasn't so close, wasn't so crushed against the body that trembled with such deep emotion, it was easier for his own tears to ease. Sirius felt hot, almost feverishly so, and Remus let his fingers trail over the other's forehead, down the side of his cheek, brushing away the course of tears from cheekbone, nose, and lips alike.

At last, Sirius's breathing steadied, and the tension in the room faded. He held tight to the hem of Remus's shirt, fingers tangled in it, and that hold did not loosen, but the rest of him did, muscles relaxing, pain soothed away.

"Don't tell anyone," Sirius whispered helpfully, "but I really thought you'd never talk to me again." Whatever brave face he had worn all summer, ever since that night at the Whomping Willow, in fact, had melted away with the onslaught of his tears. Now all he was, was just a boy, small and scared and previously alone. Remus was made terribly aware of the force of youth, the burning innocence of it, the eventual helplessness. His fingers stilled against Sirius's cheek, and he drew in a deep, long breath.

"I didn't understand," he admitted, softly, "I didn't understand why you would ever--" He cut off, and frowned to himself, and never finished that thought. "I'm sorry."

They were silent for a little while longer, the only sound the hum of air over the sleek body of the train.

"Remus." Sirius's voice was still shaky, but it was firm now. For any other occasion, he would have been embarrassed, would have denied breaking down that way. Now he was too drained to feel any lesser, petty emotions. 

_"Men don't cry lightly," Orion Black said to his son, surveying the scraped knee bemusedly, "certainly not for a little scratch. At death, maybe, if it were a real mate, or a lover, but never over a little scratch." Sirius had tried never to cry in front of anyone after that, until he realized his father's advice was shoddy, and pigheaded, and stubborn as a rule._

"Sirius." Remus sounded the same as always: immovable. Sirius should have known he would regain composure that quickly. But now, he understood what it meant, the shell of protection Remus needed always to have around himself, for fear of being hurt by the truth of all he felt.

"Should've promised you this before." He found Remus's hand, and pulled it away from his own cheek, simply holding it against Remus's knee. He toyed with one long, graceful finger, almost absently, and closed his eyes, wanting somehow to cry again, that he was allowed so close, once more. Even after he had broken so much, and nearly ruined so very much more.

"Promised me what?" Remus's voice was light, enveloping that animal thickness it had harbored before. Sirius had never heard him cry that way, and vowed he never would again. 

Such vows were not made lightly; he never heard those sounds, again.

"That I wouldn't let anyone hurt you," Sirius replied softly, voice muffled against the side of Remus's thigh, "not even me, and I'm the worst."

_Only because I need you, so much_, Remus thought, _can you hurt me this way._

_Only because I need you, so much,_ Sirius thought, _do I act so foolishly near you._

"Sometimes," Remus murmured, eyes flipping up to the ceiling, his voice deceptively careless, "sometimes promises are broken, it's better not to make them. At all." Sirius felt as if he'd been punched in the stomach. It took a few moments, for him to regain his breath.

"I'm not gonna break mine," he insisted, voice low and forceful, and suddenly change, "I'd never break a promise I made you, no matter what happened and no matter how I change. You're not the only one can keep your word, y'know, I can do it to and I bloody well intend to, Remus Lupin."_ I kissed you under the starlight, beneath the moon which marks your face in such pale light, the coming and going of a deep scar. _"'Cause just as simple as seeing you the first time I knew I was supposed to stay with you for as long as you'd have me and that's what I intend to do, until-well, until the moon stops its its changing in the sky and I can't lift a finger or move my lips to make a promise, much less keep one." _I kissed you when clouds passed over the face of the moon and you were bathed in shadow, too, and I loved you then only you didn't see it, and neither did I._

Remus was silent.

"And just because I'm not smart the way you are, the way-the way Snape is, just because I'm not the star of everything, like James, just because I can't convince anyone of anything the way Lilly can-- it doesn't mean I don't intend to keep my promise, do all I can to and make sure thatthat even if I can't be the one to help you to ityou're gonna be smiling. For some reason, any reason." Sirius swallowed, wincing. "I love it when you smile, Moony. I love to see you smile." He lifted himself up, one hand resting on Remus's shoulder, eyes focusing on those mud-brown ones, midnight blue the color of indigo and ink and more deeply passionate than ever they had been. It was just as simple as if he'd said something else, those words but changed around just a bit. "I do," Sirius said helplessly, all the wind leaving his sails. "I do."

Remus could have told him, then, that the way Sirius laughed filled a room with its sunshine song, and ever since the first time Remus heard it, it took his breath away. 

Remus could have told him, then, that the way Sirius moved through air and space was like a bright star in the darkened sky, the sort that guided weary travelers home after many years of a fruitless journey.

Remus could have made absolutely clear, right then, that he loved it when Sirius did foolish things and brilliant things alike, when Sirius touched Remus's lips with his thumb, when he looked up with a cocky grin or bowed his head to hide the sparkles in his eyes or took Remus out to the snow and laughed in the crisp air with him, or listened to him read on a winter's day by the fireside.

Remus could have told him, then, that ever since the beginning Sirius had saved him from small things and yet what it meant, what it truly meant to him, was that Sirius was his brightest star and his truest friend and he would never let him go, could never let him go.

Instead, Remus Lupin ducked his head for a moment, and then lifted it again. Along the lines of his lips played the shyest but most honest smile that he had ever worn, and from the look in Sirius's eyes, Remus realized he had done the right thing.

"Thank you," Sirius said. Remus shook his head, still smiling shyly, his hair falling over his eyes.

"I missed you, Sirius," was all he said in reply, and then Sirius wrapped him up in his arms. There was no desperation in the embrace, this time, only affection and tenderness, only the feel of Sirius's breath against Remus's lips and Remus's breath against Sirius's lips.

And they kissed, after that, not to make up for lost time but simply to kiss, as the world moved past them, just outside the window: a rolling summer countryside, unimportant yet dazzlingly green.  
  


There was a moth upon the screen window, disturbed only by the breeze that filtered through its torn wings.

He watched it. Small bug. Small creature.

Some longing could be sensed inside of it, for the porch light that flickered outside, on and off and zapping when the stray wasp or moth found its way too close.

Such a trap, he enjoyed such traps, and felt amused that the moth wanted such brightness so, when it would result in such unexpected death.

Unexpected death amused him, as well, for he watched the Redcaps as they bathed in blood, crept up from their holes and feasted upon the battlefield's rotting flesh, and he laughed to himself a low chuckling sound like wind over the moors. ( Upon the moors wind did not whistle or howl, it moaned, encircling man or tree or house and laughing a crazed, low chuckle, such as his own. No less powerful, for all that it was a soft sound. It would barrel into you, knock you over before you saw it coming, when you thought the world laughed with you, rather than against. )

Unexpected death amused him as did traps, for he saw the Harpies flock to despoil what they could, chased away from great feasts of old they had once smeared with their foulness, and their retching, and their blood and their mirth. ( He was not yet old enough to know such feasts, but he was very old, as old as the great oak outside his cottage window, which flickered in the lamplight. Bzz. Flicker. The moth looked on with what he imagined to be hungry longing. The porch of Nazaire Yseult was reminiscent of life itself, because he worked in such amusing circles, enjoying them, and thriving upon them. Just as he thrived upon death, and the life born of all that it became, fertilizer of life forming life afresh. )

There was a moth, clinging to the screen window, a ratted brown creature that did not move much, as if it had forgotten how.

The house of a Murdrum was very plain, and very sparse, and made of old wood that splintered beneath the fingers, and rotted beneath the shoes. 

Murdra grew out from their centers like trees, each new skin almost reptilian, each knew fingerprint representing another decade tucked behind their belts. But they were hardly serpentine, the lines of their bodies deserving plumage, it seemed, their noses arched and their faces sharply cut, as if they once had beaks. Nazaire had dark eyes, dark hawk eyes, near onyx in his dark face. His hair was the color of hawk feathers, and he had been given that name, once, Hawkfeather, by a man who had come to his village long ago upon a great wooden ship, bearing Maize from the Americas. 

_"I was brought here by a man who searched the seas, even, for gold," the Murdrum from another land said, his face the color of mahogany and his eyes bright pinpoints in that dark face, "and he did not look in our fields, he did not look in the places where battles stretched blood and flesh to make the ground supple for our golden corn. See?" And he held the Maize upwards, towards the sunlight, and they ate that night, hard bread with soft, sweet corn. They smelled gunpowder from far away and tasted the scent of anger, unfounded and unexplained, upon their tongues, licking their lips, smacking them afterwards. The unnamed brother lifted broad, scarred hands up to the sky, and framed the stars with his fingers, but did not try to catch the points of light that flickered on, bzz, off, bzz, on, bzz, so very far away. He knew what he could do, and what he could not, and he could sow battlefields like fields of corn but he could not catch the stars._

"What is your name?" Nazaire asked him. "Quel est votre nom?"

"Do not be formal with me," the Murdrum said, "and I will tell you my name. It is Songless, and I creep where the youngest lie, breathing their last breaths. I kiss their lips. I do not help them rise or fall, simply steal their life and their death as my own and leave their eyes glassy, as powerful and as lacking as gold planted in the ground."

He left Nazaire with seeds for corn, and Nazaire planted them, and made his living through selling the sweetest corn in all of France, for he knew what to feed his earth and told no one the secrets of battle-flesh feeding cornstalks.

Nazaire had no respect for men, though he was in man-form, man shape. What you saw was an illusion, things crouching down by the bodies of fallen soldiers in the mist and the gray of night, feeding off of marrow and muscle with sharp teeth that made bone into kernels of corn.

"But we are not Songless," Nazaire told the moth, who flicked antennae nervously, "our songs are simply softer than human ears can hear. Human hearts listen, and pull their cloaks tighter against us, our reach which they think is the cold. They move through our keening from body to body upon the battlefield, but we, we are faster."

Nazaire could think of nothing more foul than a graveyard, all once living things trapped there beneath the earth, instead of mixing with the air and settling upon the lives and filling the air with that pungent scent. His cottage -- he has not seen a war in years, many long years; not, at least, a true and glorious war, where death is clean and simple, an arrow through the heart, a cry of sharp pain, a gasping of the earth as a body falls against the dirt beneath -- smells of old, old pine, and wet redwood, and cannot be found now even if you search it out. Against the coming of a dark plague, a black scourge, technology giving rise to an era of cunning death and bone shattered with smog upon the wind, Nazaire has hidden himself, watching moths die at his porch lamp. 

There are none who speak his name. The only memory of it is the cawing bzz, flicker, bzz, flash, just outside the screen, and the hunger with which the moth watches this cycle it cannot truly understand.

The sweetest corn in all of France grew out back, yet only he feasted upon it. After each meal he fed his small garden with cornsilk and cornstalks, and watched time pass along the wingspans of eerie green Luna Moths, and every day corn grew up afresh. It was a cycle of the earth that the Murdrum understood, deep within their not-blood; the words for that cycle what others would call morbid, but what they knew was true beauty. The Murdrum did not die but faded out into the wind, and wished that for all their understanding of the world they could die just _once_.

Nazaire Yseult would have become the fertilizer for corn, and he would have been both green and gold unfurled to the sunlight. This, he thought, as he watched the moth, would have been the grandest destiny of all, for in the fulfillment of it he would have been sweeter than life itself, and perhaps would live, or would not live, for a short but blessed time in the belly of a child.

There was a moth upon the screen window, and then it seemed to shrink in terror to an indivisible size. It trembled. It pulled back. It fluttered off into the darkness of Nazaire's room, and disappeared through a crack in the ceiling, desperate to hide.

The maggots in his wood burrowed deeper down, searching for the safety of the earth, the familiarity of its moist, bug-sized caverns.

Even the termites stopped their endless eating, hunger banished from their minuscule minds, starvation forgotten in the face of their irrational fear.

Outside, the porch light stopped its flickering. A place that was known as Mothtrap to the animals, tales passed on without speech, with only the flicking of whiskers and the panting of heavy breath, fell suddenly silent, as if it were about to rain.

_"There are darker times coming," Songless warned him, yet Nazaire had thrown back his head, and laughed, a sweet sound, yet not as sweet as the corn. He had looked so young, then, a bird wild and untamed, who lived for prey in the shivering North. "There are darker times coming," Songless repeated, though his advice fell upon deaf ears, "when we will be too weak upon our own feet. I will have faded by then but you, you will be but the shadow of a pawn, and a greater hand, more powerful than the ripples of death, will move you. You will forget your own feet, you will move through the Redcaps upon _his_ battlefield, and you will not remember a time when it had been any different." Still, Nazaire had not listened, had smoked a pipe made of a corn husk, and had watched his smoke circles fade into the darkened sky._

With an ancient, creaking sound, the porch door swung open, and in it stood a dark shadow, darker than new warfare and darker than the Gatling Gun had been, darker than all the shadows Nazaire now ignored as unimportant presences in his mind. It seemed at first to be a shadow only but then it took shape, and form. The only thing that was truly clear to be seen, though, and not a misty memory later on, were slatted green eyes that burned in the pupils a rusty, bleeding red.

"Nazaire Yseult?" The voice was clipped, and well pressed, and incredibly polite, but Nazaire was reminded of a snake in a bird's nest, and so he did not smile.

"That is what I call myself," he returned.

"Well, then, it is what I must call you, for the time being at least, for everyone should be called by some name, or another."

"Then what is it I can call you by?" It was hard, even for Nazaire himself, to focus upon the intensity of those painfully bright, almost green eyes. They were, he realized later, the color of a battlefield in the glorious morning: green grass spattered with drying blood, blanketed in the scent of death.

"I am known by many names," came the reply, "but you shall not need to call me anything at all."

_"You will forget your own feet, you will move through the Redcaps upon _his_ battlefield, and you will not remember a time when it had been any different." _

"There is to be a war," said the dark shadow in Nazaire's doorway, "and it will be greater than any other before it. There will be need of those who thrive on death in such places. I am not a fool; I cannot bribe the gods of Death, I cannot have them begging favors from the palm of my hand. But the demons of Death, the legends of Death, the ghouls and the ghosts of Death, can be as easily mine as they were Napoleon's, as the Crusaders', as any fool king or prince who gathered forces and sounded the charge."

_The unnamed brother lifted broad, scarred hands up to the sky, and framed the stars with his fingers, but did not try to catch the points of light that flickered on, bzz, off, bzz, on, bzz, so very far away. He knew what he could do, and what he could not, and he could sow battlefields like fields of corn but he could not catch the stars._

"I suppose," Nazaire Yseult said, toying with a strand of cornsilk caught in his teeth, "there is no point to saying yes or no, for it will happen, and perhaps I will regret less if I decide now. Even if it is simply to pretend I had some voice in the matter, when I know as I speak, that I do not now, and never will."

"Shall we?" the Shadow-man said. He did not ask, simply directed, opening the screen door behind him.

And in that dark night Nazaire Yseult, the last of the Murdra, stepped out into the darkness, away from the comforting smell of rotting wood, and thought he saw a wolf's eyes glinting at him through the trees, curious and unreadable for all their fierce brightness.

And in that dark night Nazaire Yseult could smell the sort of blood that was so pure and therefore so sweet, untainted with progress or with gunpowder or with gunsmoke, coming to him upon the air, and he straightened his shoulders, looking for all the world like a hawk ready to take flight.

All anxiety over returning to Hogwarts had faded from both Sirius's and Remus's minds, and by the time they sat down to eat Sirius's appetite had returned, along with that powerful and unavoidable good cheer at being back, at being by Remus's side, and at being a Fifth Year Gryffindor with all the world before him on his crowded plate. Things seemed right, James noted, with Sirius snatching food out from under his classmates' noses, offering the choicest prizes to Remus and grinning like a fool from ear to ear. Even Peter seemed unable to resist the laughter and the chaos all around him, smiling as he ate, talking more in that one night than he normally did in a week, and about more pleasant things, at that. Of them all, Lilly was in some ways the happiest, sitting with James on one side and talking quietly with one of her best friends, Blythe Harold, who sat on the other side of her. All she could think of was how she had, in some ways, _succeeded_, and in that she was tremendously proud, holding James's hand in her own beneath the table, just to stay her giddiness.

"Well," Blythe had said, dark blue eyes sparkling, "don't _you_ look happy. Anything _special_ happen this summer, then?"

"No," Lilly had answered, and it had been truthful, but she gave James's hand a little squeeze all the same. It was her pleasure to note that he returned it. 

During the course of the evening Remus realized how unused to the crowds he had become, and discovered that he was not as uncomfortable as he should have been, under the circumstances. He kept close to Sirius's side, sitting next to him once more, and there seemed to be nothing wrong at all with the world, certainly nothing wrong with his place in it. When Sirius at last leaned over, brushing hair from Remus's face so he could whisper in his ear, Remus realized barely an hour of the feast had passed, yet it seemed almost an eternity of laughing and joking and catching up. Too much time had been missed between them for them to sum up in an hour, but they had certainly tried.

"D'you wanna maybe, go somewhere more quiet?" Sirius asked Remus in a stage whisper, breathing softly against his ear. Remus paused, weighed the situation, felt himself suddenly realize how tense he was with the crowd and the shouting and the lack of privacy, and he nodded.

"All right," he said, resisting the urge to press a hand against his cheek, to rub his fingers over the tickle of breath upon his earlobe.

They needed no further planning than that. Sirius would one day no doubt be an escape artist, or something along the lines, for they snuck out of the Great Hall without even being seen. The halls were eerily quiet, deserted as all the other students, and teachers, feasted behind the great doors, which Sirius and Remus left behind, only their footsteps disturbing the silence.

Their bags were already laid out by their beds, and Remus felt suddenly tired, a weariness born of too much activity, both emotional and physical. He blinked towards Sirius, but the boy was already tugging off his school robes and readying himself for bed, as if he'd read Remus's thoughts before he'd even thought them, himself. Remus shook his head, and then bowed it to hide a smile, searching through his things for an oversized t-shirt to wear during the warm summer night. It was an easy, quick change; unlike Sirius, who threw his robes into a crumpled heap by the side of his bed, Remus folded his, smoothing out the wrinkles, and setting them neatly on top of his bag. Sirius watched this procedure with a little rueful smile on his face, the smaller boy with those somber, whiskey-brown eyes focused in concentration upon the task at hand. Remus ran his fingers over the smooth fabric, making sure everything was just right, before he straightened, and looked back at Sirius over his shoulder.

Though he had known the entire time, this was the first time that Remus actually acknowledged the fact that Sirius was watching him. Their eyes met, for a moment, and then Sirius shrugged, suddenly shy, running his fingers through his hair and tossing it back over one shoulder. 

"Y'look tired," Sirius managed to say, frowning at the failure of his own words, the fumbling of his own tongue, "and I've always liked your bed better anyway, so let's get some sleep, for tomorrow. We have Potions, first, and that's nothing to look forward to." _You're babbling, Sirius Black,_ said the voice he always ignored in the back of his mind. He kicked it aside.

"I am tired," Remus admitted, "it's been a long day, hasn't it?" He toyed with the frayed hem of his shirt and shifted, eyes focused on his bare feet below him. It was for that reason he felt Sirius come close before his saw him, felt the hand slip into is before he saw it, and felt himself move along with the pull of Sirius's warm and convincing body, before he could even think to make his legs move. It was all on instinct, but it felt right enough. Leaning back into Sirius's arms, sinking into the warmth of the cloud-soft Hogwarts' canopy bed, was enough to convince him. His eyes fell shut.

But only for a moment.

Sirius's lips were against his cheek as soon as Remus relaxed back against his chest, and Remus felt suddenly deeply aware of the place he had settled himself, in between both of Sirius's legs. He shifted, felt rather than heard the soft, hissing sound Sirius made at the change in positions, and fell hurriedly still, breath quickening in his throat.

But Sirius's lips remained where they were, not even searching out Remus's own as he drew the covers up over them both, and burrowed back against the pillows. Somehow, Remus felt both relieved and disappointed, all at once, but said nothing, anything other than silence seeming fundamentally wrong in the moment.

Naturally, Sirius was the first to break the silence; but even as he spoke, his hands were busy, slipping easily up underneath the hem of Remus's nightshirt, dancing over smooth and scarred skin alike.  
  
"I never got to tell you," he said softly, throat humming with the words, "about Padfoot, and the others."

"About who?" Only Sirius could get this close. Remus shifted again, and felt the muscles in Sirius's thighs tense as body brushed against body.

"Padfoot," Sirius said, the name coming naturally to his tongue, just as kissing Remus did. Remus understood, quickly enough, without having to question Sirius further about what he meant.  
  
"What does-- I mean, what does it _feel_ like?" he asked softly, breath hitching in his throat as Sirius's lips moved down over the line of Remus's cheek, tracing the cheekbone and jaw beneath.

"It felt kind of funny," Sirius admitted, voice rumbling over Remus's skin, "kind of like looking at yourself, from outside of yourself, but not seeing what you normally would, in a mirror. And then, after that, it just feels-- it just feels right, almost, because it is you, entirely you, just a different reflection of yourself."

Remus had never known Sirius to be so poetic. Remus had also never known such complete jealousy.

_It just feels right,_ Sirius had said. So changing from yourself to a not-self but true-self all the same _could_ feel right, _could _feel like coming home. Well, Remus decided, quelling that jealousy before it was even fully realized inside of him, well, it made sense, after all, for this changing was voluntary, was what Sirius had _wanted_, and so why should it feel wrong?

It wasn't as if he could ever wish pain such as his on anyone else, anyway, he told himself. Not even on an enemy. Certainly not on Sirius.

"Padfoot is -- well, I suppose, _I_ am -- well, he's big," Sirius continued, lips trailing down over Remus's neck as the smaller boy shifted to the side to give him full access to that soft expanse of skin. "And black, and has these dark shadowy eyes, and he makes jokes sometimes, mostly about me, though. It's annoying, because a lot of the time he's completely right. I bet Prongs -- that's James, y'know -- I bet Prongs doesn't make fun of James, but James is just like that, only Lilly can make fun of him, and even she doesn't really want to. And Peter, Peter is Wormtail -- did I tell you, James, Prongs, is a stag, I've seen him once, he looked all...regal, and proud -- and Peter, Wormtail, is a rat, small and kinda gray, and I don't think he likes being a rat very much, but we didn't choose 'em, they chose us, so there's really nothing can be done about it. But Prongs, he's _glorious_, and Padfoot-- I like him, a lot, I think you will too, and-- and I'm just running off at the mouth again, aren't I." Sirius fell still, silent, for a sheepish moment. "Sorry," he murmured, face hidden against Remus's neck.

"Don't apologize," Remus encouraged him, smiling faintly, fondly, "I wanted to know. I wanted to hear what I'd missed."

"You'll see soon enough," Sirius went on, softer, this time, his tone more gentle. "Because after all, they're for you," and he gave the side of Remus's Adam's Apple a sweet, chaste kiss, "but it's got to be just the right time for them, if you know what I mean."

"Yes," Remus said, suppressing a thrill, "yes, I think I do." Sirius traced a lazy, absent pattern over Remus's stomach, fingering that scar gently and warily, skirting along the edge of it. It was tender flesh -- Sirius had a few scars from being careless as a boy, and he knew scar tissue was quite sensitive -- and so it made Sirius nervous, and Remus equally so, because he'd realized early on that Sirius liked, thrived on, needed, simple touch, and the multitude of scars made the bigger boy cautious.

"I'll be able to go with you everywhere," Sirius said softly, to distract them both from his roving hands, "everywhere you want me, or need me..."

"You'll get in the way and draw such attention," Remus said, but Sirius noted the tone of his voice and the look in his eyes and felt warmth flood through him. It was as if Remus had said, _that's everywhere, then, everywhere I am, always,_ and they both knew it, even if it had been impossible to actually say.

Some things, Sirius was slowly learning, were so, so much better than words could say them. With Remus, the most soft-spoken of confessions was normally the deepest and most important. The small boy made you lean forward in your seat, strain to listen, and it underscored the importance of him and his presence each time, not to mention that it made Sirius feel like a blustering, screeching git. 

Which, admittedly, all signs said he _was_.

Remus smelled sweet, sweet in a fresh-rain sort of way, the feel of that scent just a little humid when they were so close, but that was understandable, after all. Sirius wondered if Remus could smell him so acutely, and decided finally that he must, and then made himself a promise to shower more often. Little things, he reminded himself, little things are what matter most.

And, of course, the few Big Things, big enough that they had no name and were yet unspoken between them. But Sirius thought Remus must have thought they were perhaps to young, and Remus had never put such feelings into words, had never had the need to, for he had never had them. So neither of them spoke it, neither of them truly felt as if they had to, and both were content.

For the time being, there was a little touch here, and a little touch there, and a nuzzle and a nip at Remus's neck, and a shifting back into the warm hold of Sirius's arms, and the feel of Sirius pushing forward into something that wasn't there, and the sound of his breath hitching in his throat.

For the time being, there was Remus running his fingers in a somber way through Sirius's hair, and Sirius loving the touch, and Sirius's fingers tensing against the skin at Remus's sides, and kneading at the muscle, and pulling him close, pressing body against body, his breath quickening.

For the time being, there was Sirius, who still wore a flannel pajama set, clothing which underscored his irrepressible youth, and Remus, who wore an impossibly large t-shirt and pajama pants, one to which the top was long since gone. And the clothing, all soft flannel and cotton, rustled between them, skin on fabric on fabric on skin.

Fingerpads against scalp, fingers tangled gracefully in dark hair, body arched so they were face to face, and watching, always watching, and loving all they saw. 

The side of Remus's hip, pressed in between Sirius's legs. Sirius's knees drawn up, his eyes only half focused, his own hips moving in a clumsy, boyish way, but there was some hunger there that Remus sensed, and the smell of the air, the feel of it, had changed. Remus's eyes, on Sirius's face, the way it changed and the brow furrowed and a little line of sweat stood out over his forehead. Then, Remus's lips pressing up against that suddenly lined skin, tasting, and a breath breathed in deep, just to remember, and mark, and revel.

"Remus," Sirius was whispering, his voice sounding trapped and far away, hidden in the back of his throat, and something about the sound of his name spoken that way made Remus's eyes glitter, made the backs of them burn, until he closed them, the cool of the lids soothing to that heat. "Ah--n, Remus." Sirius's hips lifting, against Remus's hipbone, everything awkward angles and uncomfortable twisting but there was something, something in that awkwardness, something in the way Remus felt so foolish and fumbling, that was satisfying, and whole, a pleasure that ran deep.

Remus wasn't all that naive. He wasn't experienced, but he wasn't a fool, and the way Sirius was moving terrified him. Suddenly, he was grateful for the clothing that stood in between them, all-too-rough against all-too-sensitive skin. Suddenly, he knew that whatever this was it could all be summed up in a word: intimacy. And the easier he found it, the easier lying in Sirius's arms would be, the more often it would happen. Suddenly, he knew what he had to do, following instinct as he found he did, so often, where Sirius was concerned.

But that was mostly because no one had given him a book of rules to follow, for no book could properly describe this.

Remus shifted again in Sirius's arms, pressing himself closer, searching for the hissing sound, like air escaping a balloon, that he was sure would follow. It came. Quick. Remus trailed his fingers through Sirius's hair, and rested them at last, laced, over the back of Sirius's neck. The bigger boy shivered -- soft touches, soft words, soft sounds; soft skin, soft lips, soft kisses; everything about Remus so soft, and speaking volumes for such delicacy. This was the first time, Sirius's mind said somewhere, where it was still thinking coherently, that Remus had ever taken charge. And it felt good; just as soft, just as delicate, as touching Remus had been, only now _Remus was touching him_, and he thought he might lose his mind.

"That's-- Remus-- ahh--" It was as if it wasn't really him speaking, but Remus could hear the soft gasps, the hushed whispers, the little, wonderful sounds like a song on the cool night air, and he shifted again, and brought Sirius closer. A hand dropped to his thigh, the space between them constricted, and tight. And yes, Remus admitted, he felt small, like a child, and impossibly foolish, and terribly inept. It was embarrassing to the extreme, but Sirius's face had grown smooth, and the skin and the spiky, short hairs at the back of his neck were velvety, and in the end it was worth it, worth being this clumsy and therefore this vulnerable, because the result justified every moment of it.

Sirius Black pressed himself closer, and then made a gasping sound, his eyes flying open as he stiffened, and Remus felt the heat between them coil, and tense, and grow. Muscles were stiff and there was something against his hipbone that he recognized, and then he realized that heat in his cheeks meant he was blushing.

And fortunately, Sirius was kind enough or perhaps shy enough or perhaps both not to make any sound louder than a short "oh!" and then a deep sigh, which might have been Remus's name, and might have been nothing altogether, or something else entirely. It was hard to tell. All Remus knew at the moment, was that he was blushing straight to his ears, and he had to hide himself up against Sirius's chest -- the very closeness which made him blush in the first place -- to calm himself.

He shouldn't have been blushing, he told himself, he simply shouldn't have been. And yet, simple as that, he was.

He was also tight in his muscles and hot in his clothes and a little shaky right down to his bones. Then, Sirius came back to himself from the shock of orgasm, and found himself stroking the side of Remus's arm, over his shoulder and to his elbow, repeating, repeating, repeating again. It was a soothing caress, and Remus let himself relax with the pull of Sirius's sated muscles, the satisfied aura that seemed to pulse from his skin.

"You're amazing," Sirius said, voice awed, and though the two words muffled in Remus's hair, their intent and the emotion behind them was made perfectly clear.

And, just for a peculiar, shining moment, where the world felt strange and the air smelled exotic, and Remus felt a stranger in his own skin, Remus believed those words to be true, simply because they had come from Sirius's lips.

Lurking under beds and in dark corners of closets was all very well, until, of course, the children you haunted ran screaming to their mums and dads and lights were turned on, comforting darkness obliterated, and that wailing and that crying and that soothing quelled the weakened reach of the fear you could yet instill, and then it was back to scurrying among the dust bunnies, looking for somewhere else, someone else, who still believed.

In the depths of the middle ages the Noctumbra had hid among ship rats, had fed off the shadow of the Black Death, and the fear they brought to the hearts of children had been born within the velvet petals of posies. From thereon in, they had been so strong and so cruel, rearing up in dark corners, striking terror into hearts and devouring the sight of such wide, petrified eyes.

They could turn tree into rock in those days, their cruel claws clutching around chests, puncturing lungs, keeping hearts from beating. Those were the days of true power, where floorboards creaked and people believed in ghouls and bogeys and banshees, when they left out saucers of bread soaked in milk for the piskies upon their doorsteps, when they hung garlic over windowsills to keep out what lurked in the night. When the sun fell over the horizon, and at last dipped beneath, they were quiet as rats and swift as bats in the skies, and they found places where fear was so thick it could pilfer breath from the strongest man's lips. They hated churches and crosses but simply because of the combating forces of belief that lay within those symbols, not for the religion they represented. 

In those times, when death was rank and filled the streets, when that death heightened belief and drew cloaks around shivering bodies against the cold, the Noctumbra had been their strongest, had thought of such power that one day, they would rule All Things. They were the opposite of fairytales, and crept into bedtime stories with whispers of hate, and promises of the abject terror that was to come.

Now, things had changed. Instead of old, creaky houses there rows of  
shining steel flats seeming to reach up to the sky, and the crush of people that filled them chased out shadows and old wives' tales, and the Noctumbra could not live there. Legends were forgotten for cities that sprouted up around factories; even mining villages spewed out smoke and progress and left their past and their folk tales behind amidst the tree stumps. England was a cold place and gray smog had settled over London, misty nights forgotten beneath the bright glare of street lamps. 

Ricell was one of the few that remained of its kind, and it was small, and its only friends were the mothballs packed into the closets. Once it had been tall, and proud, all angles, a trap for light and a black hole of darkness. It had spread fear as easily as chaos in warfare, and its targets were not only small children, irrational and foolish, but also men and women of all ages, all over the countryside, and even in the city. Now, it was a slithering wisp of a shadow, curling through spaces, as would a detached wing of a bat, causing momentary horror, brief and flickering and dissatisfying to its desperate belly.

For a while, it stalked a particularly gulli ble eight-year-old who wore thick-rimmed glasses and read horror stories, hungrily licking her lips at the turn of each page. Such a target, Ricell thought in waves of annoyance and faint amusement, to be reduced to. The Noctumbra were only a sum of that which they scared, in the end, and Ricell was quite aware of how pathetic it had truly become. But such were the times they lived it.

_The girl felt the shadow curl like sharp fingers over her ankle, and her back stiffened in terror, her eyes opening wide. In her story the spunky heroine had finally flung open the door to the evil creature's lair, only to discover she had been outnumbered. The cool hand of death was now upon both their shoulders and suddenly, suddenly, the girl discovered it was not so enticing, this love of fear, when it was real and settling irrationally upon you. She felt as if she would panic, and yet she remained dry throated, but calm._

"Who are you?" she asked, breathless.

There was no answer, the silence painful and terrible and echoing in her ears.

But soon, in a space of a few years, the girl had discovered makeup and the opposite sex, and her love of holing herself up in a dark room reading darker paperback novels from the local library waned. She stopped believing altogether soon after, the first time she'd been kissed; her flare for what she thought was romance replaced for what it really was, and Ricell was left alone again, homeless, and without a place to stay.

Next, it haunted the cribs of babies, making them cry out in howling despair in the depths of the night, as he flapped through the bars around them, and lay upon their sweaty chests. There was no end to the babies of the world, and though they grew up fast there was always another one, pure and innocent and therefore easily, illogically terrified. But again, the Noctumbra were only a measurement of that which they could rule with fear, and to be king of small babies lying, drooling and cooing, in their cribs was to be king of nothing at all.

And so Ricell moved on, living in caves and hanging bat-like from tree branches in forests where the animals still knew its presence, if not its name. A creature of shadows and claws, it was a ratted leaf to those who did not believe, or perhaps a very old bat, and the name of the Noctumbra were forgotten to most men and women.

But not all.

The legend of the Noctumbra was written only in the dustiest of volumes, collected as specimens for the counting, and taken as lightly as such past entities as the Minotaur ­ a legend, of course, naught remaining of him or his winding lair ­ and all other forgotten creatures that not even Wizards found time to believe in, anymore. Existence in this fashion was tiresome but so long as there were those who still spoke the word ­ Noctumbra ­ whether through pen or through voice or through barside laughter, Ricell lived on, fluttered on, lights as tissue paper, as unimportant as dust.

And then, on one dark night, in the midst of a chase Ricell watched, barn owl swooping down upon field mouse, it felt forgotten brethren approaching, two creatures from legend such as itself, and one that was man but warped and twisted into something bigger, more powerful, ferociously insane yet deceptively quiet. The presence was fear itself in a way Ricell had never been, and in the cool, calm summer night Ricell found that he was growing, reaching the tree branch from the ground with the infusion of such insanity.

"I have searched for this memory of the Old Fear for a long time," Voldemort said, when he came face to not-face with the fear that stood before him. "I do not fear you, and I never will, but I will give you fear to feast on such as you have never seen before, and will never have the chance to see again. Come with me, bind yourself to this, and times will be as they were, only better than ever before."

Ricell paused. The air smelled of wolf and man and hawk and man, of blood and of moonlight, of moss and of corn. Ricell had no blood in its form, just a shadow of darkness upon more darkness, but it felt something powerful seep through its non-veins, and it made no sound, just a chorus of shivers upon the wind. The trees shrank away from it, the stars drew back in pain, the barn owl froze with the dead mouse dropping from its talons. The walls of the barn close by trembled, as if they would disappear into nothingness with the force of this new aura.

"So you will come with me," Voldemort said with a smile that slithered upon his lips. All was quiet, and then one lone wolf let out one long howl, the sound of bones rattling in the sudden lack of wind.

The Noctumbra were only as powerful as that which they filled with fear.

One day, Ricell had the foolishness to presume, it would be all powerful again, more than it ever had been, for it would drink this man's fear as a vampire bat drank cow's blood, though the desire was misinformed and the idea was born of impulsive youth. As legends went, the Noctumbra were yet very young.

Voldemort could sense whatever aspirations Ricell had, and his smile widened. Best to have no trust at all, for you would be betrayed and you would betray, and the more powerful you became, the more powerful grew your friends, and they became your enemies.

But three had already been gathered, and he had time, yet, the element of surprise still on his side.

Basil St. Hemlock was not, as they said, best pleased. Though Albus had set out the most appetizing of late-afternoon tea spreads -- resplendent with crumpets, scones, and finger sandwiches -- Basil could see through his game, as could Minerva, and both sat in tight-lipped silence as Albus cheerily made headway through a crumbling raisin scone, complete with clotted cream.

"More tea?" Albus asked, gesturing towards Basil's still empty cup, and Basil drew upon all he had in the way of disdain to give the older man his most unamused look. Albus blinked once, twice, and then shrugged. "All the more for me, I suppose, since Minerva doesn't seem to be wanting any, either; what a pity. It's rather the best brew I've had all year!" Minerva coughed, once, and attempted to faze Albus with a cautionary glare. Naturally, the headmaster of Hogwarts was anything but fazed, finishing up his scone with a smacking of lips and a beaming smile.

"Don't you think we should be doing something other than having tea?" Minerva queried at last, tight-lipped, but seeming more threateningly so than usual. "It's hardly a time for such frippery," she added, for emphasis, because it took a lot to get through to Albus, sometimes, or at least to force Albus to show some of what he was thinking.

"Ah, Minerva," Albus said, now sipping his second cup of tea, "what wouldn't be a time for a nice spot of tea? Mm?" When Minerva proved too huffy to respond, Albus sighed, and grew fractionally more serious, even if it was only for a moment. "It soothes the spirit, after all, and calms the mind. Best way to start off grave discussions; a bit of tea, a sandwich or two, a crumpet."

"Though some may say it's impossible to think on an empty stomach," Basil cut in, voice icy and sharp, "we shall have to do so soon, no doubt, when time is more of the essence ­ and it may be as such as we speak, as we waste it! ­ so perhaps we might better prepare ourselves for it sooner, rather than later. Don't you agree, Minerva?"

"Quite," Minerva replied, the word clipped.

"Oh, you _would_," Albus said, grinning widely and waving a dismissive hand, "because it seems I've done something to rub your fur the wrong way. Come now, both of you; it's quite evident that harder times are upon us, times more dangerous and times more fierce, so why do you both find it absolutely impossible to enjoy the good times while they last?"

"Because while we sit here and snack upon watercress," Basil snapped back, thoroughly aggravated, "there is an enemy approaching our gates, casting our safe havens into shadow, and gathering his forces in the pitch of night."

"Well," Albus said, blinking from behind his spectacles, "that was very poetic of you, Basil; the next time I want a very gloomy prediction, I shall have to come to you for it!"

"It's the truth," Basil ground out, "not a foolish prediction of doom, and you'd be all the wiser for listening to it over the rumblings of your stomach!"

"As you well know, Basil, I have no cause yet to let ludicrous tales of 'safe havens' in 'shadow' disturb my tea. But if you must know," and here Albus selected another scone, this one seeming to be flecked with lemon rinds, and began to scoop cream upon it, "preparations are being made, because I am not a doddering old fool, at least not yet, and you are not the first to have such an epiphany over the future! I drink tea, after all; not simply to read the tea leaves, but in my leisure I have time to survey such things, and therefore, I do." Both Basil and Minerva were stunned momentarily silent.

"So you know, then, about the Noctumbra he has found, and is keeping as pet, though where, we cannot say." Minerva found herself taking the cup of tea, now lukewarm, that Albus had poured for her at the beginning of this atypical meeting.

"But of course, dear Minerva," Albus said, with his mouth half-full.

"But of course," Minerva echoed, feeling somewhat sheepish, then continued, "and, you're right, after all."

"Mm?" Albus blinked up from the mere remains of his second scone, eyes seeming owlish, wise and round.

"This is very good tea." Albus grinned cheekily, still the vision of unbridled youth despite his age, and Minerva coughed and ducked her head, pretending to choke, in order to hide her matching smile. Such a man was a danger, beneath, and such an impossible dolt, on the surface. It drove you to sheer distraction, half the time! ( But you knew you simply would not have it any other way, in the end. He was an endearing, if not vaguely batty, old man. )

"Now," Albus said, "we shall just have to convince Basil of that, so that he, too, shall join us in having some." His blue eyes glittered in his kind, ageless face, and it was quite apparent to his two guests that, whatever was to come, he was ready, and probably had been for at least twenty years.

The amusement park smelled, as all amusement parks do, of things too sweet and too sugary for good health, of children and money and laughter, and tears. On the Saturday afternoon it was, of course, packed full of cheerful or not-so-cheerful families, milling about in the direction over-zealous children chose. There was no end to the corn dogs being eaten, no end to the ice cream being spilled down the fronts of white t shirts, and certainly no end to the pizza and the nachos and the cheese sauce and the french fries and the ketchup that found their way into laps onto tabletops more often than into hungry mouths.

Pete Thomson liked cotton candy in the same way all small boys do; he liked it because it said 'amusement park' to him, he liked it because he always got it if he whined hard enough for it. And he liked it in great, gobbing fistfuls, shoved greedily into his mouth. He liked it when he had so much that for a brief, glorious second he felt as if he were spun of light, cloud-puff sugar. Hell, he even liked it when he crashed down from that cloudy place, and sometimes threw up all over his new shoes. That was just the way cotton candy worked.

Pete Thomson had finished his own and was working on his sister's, which he'd surreptitiously taken from where she'd left it, while his mother and she had gone to the bathroom. His had been blue - because that's what the bubble-gum popping concession girl gave little boys - and his sister's was pink - for the same reason, only feminized - and he decided that he liked pink better. If only because he didn't normally get to eat it. His fingers were stained a hideous pink-blue color, as was a large ring around his mouth and on the tip of his nose, and he was watching the big roller coaster ride that he could see from halfway across the park grounds, where he was standing in the doorway of the arcade. Pete Thomson had developed the uncanny ability to be an absolutely fantastic road block; most small children had the potential, but Pete had perfected it down to an art.

He was an uncanny little child, that way.

It was only when he had finished his sister's cotton candy down to the last suck of a sticky-sweet finger, that he heard the voice, like the squeak of the unoiled hinges on the Ferris Wheel, like the rush of air through your ears on the Tilt-A-Whirl, like the sweet crunch of a candy apple in your mouth. 

"Pete," it said, "come here, Pete."

Dropping the unneeded cotton candy stick - he'd already licked it entirely clean - he turned and trotted over to where the voice was calling him, confused and thoughtless. He wound himself through the taller legs above him, belonging to those trying to win dinky prizes at Whac-a-Mole or various types of basketball games. One man was getting excessively worked up, using a neon, plastic water gun to shoot a clown in the mouth. Pete promptly ignored him after a preliminary glance, trotting onward through the Arcade to find who was calling him. It wasn't his mother - it didn't sound like his mother, for one, and his mother was in the bathroom, at that. 

"Pete," that gravel-and-sandstone voice was saying, "Pete." It sounded as if it were a desert, in desperate need of water. It felt like claws dragged lightly, almost ticklishly light, down over the length of his spine, to hear it.

"I'm coming," Pete said. It was funny that no one else seemed to hear the voice, as if it were directed only to him, and therefore caught only by his small ears. 

He found his way into the darkened back of the Arcade, which smelled musty, and old. A plastic crocodile head with a gaping mouth and lolling red tongue had been shoved into a corner there, along with a few chipped wooden balls and a large, gloved hand, that had no body. Pete poked at the hand with a toe, noticed his shoe was untied, and ignored it.

"Pete," the voice was still saying, "come here, Pete."

On one side of him was a tall, shadowy glass box that held a plastic, motionless gypsy torso and head, swathed in dusty yet once-bright shawls, wearing gaudy, plastic rings with gaudy, plastic jewels set in them. It had huge, glittering green eyes and lips of a red so bright it was impossible to think of it as anything other than a confused, too-big Barbie doll, stuck inside its glass casing. But that, it was obvious, was not what had been calling him, for this was a thing, voiceless and unimportant and, most of all, inanimate. It had never been otherwise. It would never be otherwise.

Pete turned, and looked to his left. On that side of him was another glass box, this one raised up on the top of a metal one, the sort you put coins in and pressed a button and it made, you know, stuff happen. There was a stool in front of it, and Pete, who was rather too short to see into the top box, stepped up on it, placed his hands on the glass (ignoring, of course, the faded sign that said DO NOT TOUCH GLASS) and stared inside.

For a moment, it seemed as if there was only shadow, there, another forgotten relic in a graveyard of old arcade memorabilia. And then, the shadow shifted, stretched out long, feline legs, spread sharp, feline claws, licked wide, female lips and tossed long, bronze hair over its feminine yet furred shoulder.

"Good boy, Pete," the Sphinx said. Her name was Nephthys, and she had been waiting, a long time. But she had felt the rise of the Dark One upon the horizon, and she had felt her powers grow, rusty joints beginning to bend, the sound of her own voice remembered in her eyes. Today, when the sun had risen and the flush of laughter had grown strong in her conscious, signaling the arrival of the many park goers, she had known that her power had grown enough to lure another to her. 

And that would only be the beginning.

"What are you?" Peter asked. Nephthys had forgotten how amused she used to be, by children.

"My name, is Nephthys," she purred, and her teeth clacked, and the glass shivered.

"Is that Japanese?" Pete asked, his breath making condensation marks on the glass, his fingers smearing sticky fingerprints all along them. Nephthys tried not to be disgusted, and tried also not to laugh.

"I will ask you a riddle," was all she replied, "and if you cannot tell me the answer, I will kill you, and you will taste sweeter than cane sugar when the sun is setting." Pete blinked, and laughed, nervously. "I will begin," Nephthys continued, and she stretched herself up to a height and size that threatened to shatter the glass all around her sleek, golden brown body. "What draws and warps and remains unclear, a part of you that is not held dear; what cannot be lost and is kept always near, a part of yourself that is all that you fear?" The sound of her voice was like the stretch of the Nile, pulsing muddily against the shore; the sound of long reed boats pushing through water; the sound of a cat when it was sleeping; the sound of a scarab beetle upon the air. Pete blinked, and frowned, and repeated the question to himself a few times under his breath, and finally shrugged, once, lazily.

"Dunno," he said at last, flippantly, as he licked the back edge of his teeth, still tasting the flavor 'pink' there.

"Wrong," Nephthys said, and the glass did shatter, and the foundations of the building did shake, and Pete Thomson did not know what hit him to so much as recoil from the terrible, sharp claws that drew him close, from the terrible, sharp teeth that flashed but once before there was nothing left to see.

Nephthys stretched out muscles atrophied from long disuse. She shook her head, and rolled her shoulders, and kneaded the ground which was strewn with glass. Thigh muscles and the muscles of forelegs came next. She licked her lips clean of blood with dry, rasping cat spit. It had been a long time since she had eaten anything at all, and she was pleased to see that riddles still came easily to her as they ever did, once, long ago, when she had lived in the midst of an oasis the color of lapis lazuli. The boy had tasted industrial, but that was only to be expected, the fibers of his clothes mass manufactured, the cotton candy far too sweet for her tastes.

But now, there would be others, better, stronger, more filling, more suitable to her palate. Her strength had returned. Someone, for the past ten years, had been calling her name. It had grown stronger, so insistent that her eyes had at last opened.

And now, she was free.

_ When the shadow of which she spoke in her riddle came to her, two days hence, she was perched and golden atop the carousel. She had been hunting in the dipping dusk of night, and she was full, and sated, as she had not been for a thousand years. The shadow spoke with her over the tinkling calliope music that stopped and started beneath them, and then, in the brightly flashing colors of painted horses and neon lights, the two of them left the carousel and left the amusement park and left also America, heading together, and with others, for a colder climate. _

The first full moon of the term fell on a Thursday that year. Its approach, the waxing of the moon in the sky, seemed to fill the entire group with a hushed anticipation that none of them found courage to voice. Such worries lingered for almost a full week between them, worries and excitement and sheer fidgeting nervousness, until at last the day arrived, and Remus was taken away from them. Almost 'as always,' but not quite.

It was far harder for Sirius to concentrate on his classes than usual on such days; in Potions, he nearly singed James's eyebrows off, and lost a centimeter or two off the sleeves of his own robes. Professor Hemlock was not best pleased, but seemed to let him off lightly, which was a blessing. After all, it would hardly do to miss the first full moon of the school year, after all their carefully laid plans, because Sirius was forced to stay in detention.

At supper, Sirius hardly ate, and however much he did manage to force down his throat was only a result of James and Lilly's urging. 

"You've got to eat," James had muttered into his ear, "or who knows what could happen. That's hardly fair to Remus," he added, and Sirius had grudgingly taken a few bites of a roast chicken leg, if only because James had guilted him into it. 

When night fell and the moon rose, Sirius could feel Padfoot calling to him, could feel Padfoot calling to something - someone? - no, something else, that lurked in the darkness outside. It was unsettling like a shadow, but felt comfortable after the initial confusion, as if that shadow were his own.

They waited until all of Hogwarts had fallen asleep, fully dressed and sitting in their beds; James, doing some extra homework to keep himself busy, Peter, imagining quite, unknown things, and Sirius, restless and impatient and unable to focus enough to concentrate on anything other than the wait itself.  
  
At ten thirty, they snuck down the quiet, empty halls, narrowly avoiding Mrs. Norris twice. Using a secret passageway James had found by accident during a fight with Lucius, the three of them wound their way outside of Hogwarts and onto the grounds. There, in the shadows cast over the pale moon by secret, thick clouds, they changed, or did not change but simply believed themselves to be changing. James was first, Sirius and Peter watching. Something dark, like a shadow but not quite, like a cloud but much lighter and much less tangible, passed over the line of his face and his form. Both Sirius and Peter found themselves blinking, and in that fraction of a second the boy before them was gone, replaced by the graceful lines of that forest-brown beast.

Sirius went next. Prongs and Peter both found they couldn't keep from blinking, once, while they watched; and then, there was the great body of that shaggy black dog, pale eyes set in its dark, intimidating face. It barked, once, very softly, and shook its head towards Peter. Padfoot was just as impatient as Sirius, but in a quieter fashion. For a moment, Peter considered taking his time, and then he felt Wormtail upon his shoulder, lifting a claw to the spot where he'd once bitten his ear. Peter made a face, and chose not to stall. He turned his face to the side, and Wormtail's pale eyes met his own, pale, and there was a blinking tremor in the air. Instead of Peter, there was the gray body of a rat in the grass.

Padfoot bowed his head and snuffed at him, getting his scent in a wet and smelly fashion. Wormtail chittered in annoyance; it seemed as if at any moment a pink rat paw might be lifted at the black dog in a scolding fist. Good-naturedly, Padfoot woofed at the rat, and then turned to sniff at Prongs beside him. That scent, he liked better, something that smelled like the moon upon a still lake, something that smelled like marble and majesty, and yet like grass and the earth. The rat smelled rusty, like closed gates that had been rained on for many years, as well as dry earth, and cold climates. 

_Let's go_, Padfoot said at last, and though they were hardly spoken words, the other two 'heard' them as clearly as if they had been.

And through the dark night, they were off, streaking towards the edge of the forest, and the clutching, vicious branches of the Whomping Willow. 

Wormtail, they had decided, was small enough to escape the willow's reach, and he was to find the knot that froze the tree, so that all three of them could make it through the passageway. That part of the plan had been Sirius's idea; for while James worked best with figuring out long, complicated plans in explicit detail, Sirius had always been the one to amend them on the fly, if need be.

And so Wormtail found himself scurrying along the ground, dodging those flailing branches and searching out the specific knot in the wood that Sirius had described. _Naturally_, he thought to himself, _naturally, I get this job_. But it also filled him with a sense of bitter pride. They needed him, whether they acknowledged that or not, and he'd be content with such little things, for the time being.

As soon as the willow was still Wormtail squeaked out something that could have been construed as the rat version of 'follow me!' The other two obeyed, taking it as such. Padfoot went first into the passage, leading the way, and Wormtail took up the rear, with Prongs in the middle. It was slow going, the stag's great horns caught on roots, his size sometimes getting him stuck in smaller parts of the tunnel. Still, something seemed to want them to go on, and, no matter for how long Prongs was snared, he always managed to get free, to continue on.

_We'll have to make the passageway bigger_, Padfoot said, and it seemed to echo all around them, even though the words were far from real. 

Time in the tunnel did not seem to pass; it simply went along with the movement of their paws until at last there was the winking of light before them, and the scent of a wolf at their nostrils, and the surge of anticipation in their chests. Padfoot bounded forward, and out, and into the small room, claws clacking on the floor as he skidded to a halt. The steps, and the door, would be hard to handle in these animal forms, but he was quite sure they would be able to do it. After all, they had done so much and gone so far, that a flight of stairs and a shut door could not keep them from the end of the path now.   
  
Padfoot switched gears and switched directions and started up the steps at a loping gait, as fast as he could manage it on the creaky boards. There was a small landing in front of the door, and Padfoot barely blinked down the stairs to see if the others were following. The scent of wolf was too strong and too irresistible on the air, lingering right across the barrier caused by that closed door. Padfoot barked, once -- _I'm coming_ -- and threw his great, shaggy body and all his great, shaggy weight at the feeble wood of the door. 

In one instant, the wood splintered, and the hinges gave way, and Padfoot was launched forward into the room that smelled of years and years of blood and wolf fur, the room that echoed with the sound of a wolf's lone howling.   
  
In one instant after that, the wolf had thrown itself at Padfoot, the intruder, and they were rolling on the floor, growling and tearing and biting. But Padfoot had no anger behind his actions, and it seemed, from the way nothing really hurt, as if the wolf were only playing. The tussle lasted no more than a handful of minutes, though it seemed to stretch on for hours and hours, and at last, both canines breathless, the wolf came out on top, snarling down at Padfoot with a familiar brown glint in its eyes.

Silence drew out between them, snout against snout, hot breath against hot breath.

Then, Padfoot made a soft barking sound, and nuzzled his nose up against the wolf's muzzle, licking at the side of its face. He was only half-aware of the other two presences he felt in the room -- Prongs's and Wormtail's -- so intense was the scrutiny the wolf put him under.   
  
With a flicker of recognition that could not be placed, the wolf ducked its head down, and broke the tension between them by licking Padfoot back. Its tongue was rough and hardly sweet, but the gesture meant all the world to the dog, who barked twice, short and happy, in return. It was clear, though, which was the stronger beast; the wolf, with its black lips pulled back into what was more of a sneer than a grin, was still in the dominant position, forepaws placed on Padfoot's chest.  
  
Padfoot discovered in the flood of oddly familiar scent that of all things, this was one he didn't mind.  
  
The wolf turned at last from him and moved to survey the other two, not quite daring to attack Prongs -- the stag was too proud and too tall and too imposing a figure for petty games -- but curling its lips back again to snarl at Wormtail, sending the poor rat scurrying to hide behind Prongs. If a wolf could have laughed, then this one would have, the great, russet-colored beast with its golden eyes scenting out its friends as if they were foes and finding both Prongs and Wormtail highly amusing, yet comforting, as well.  
  
At last, it turned back, its attention on Padfoot once more. The gold eyes warmed, fractionally, and it puffed out a questioning breath into the air. Padfoot barked back in return, and the wolf lifted its head and moved back on its hind paws, and howled fiercely, yet mournfully, into the thick air. Padfoot paused, then mimicked the action and the sound. The two howls mingled in their ears, and when they stopped, the wolf seemed to be satisfied.  
  
It trotted forward, sitting down in front of Padfoot and snuffing up against the side of his face, chuffing hot breath against his nose. Padfoot shook his head, settling his fur back into place, and sneezed, once. The wolf seemed to find the sound very amusing, eyes twinkling for a moment. Pushing down the urge to be affronted by the mockery, Padfoot found himself relaxing, trusting the fierce beast that sat complacently before him.  
  
That, he learned, after the wolf body catapulted against his for the second time, was his very first mistake. The wolf was oddly playful, and over-eager, and it seemed that it needed to be far more active than it had ever been given the chance to be. And, while Padfoot had left himself completely open, and quite obviously so, the wolf had taken the opportunity, as any true beast of instinct would have, to tackle the dog to the ground. With a yelp of surprise, Padfoot felt teeth sink into his neck, and felt blood being drawn. It was painful at first, and then, as he fell still, he felt the wolf licking at the wound, tending to it.  
  
The wolf, he realized suddenly, in a flash of dog instinct, was marking him, not as it would mark a tree or a corner of a room or a particular spot of earth, but as it would mark a member of its pack. The tenderness of the neck, the symbolism of its vulnerability, suggested that the wolf had been marking its mate, for when it pulled back and went to tussle with the other two, it never once went for the throat. Padfoot wondered, as he watched, when he would be strong enough and at home enough in this place, to mark the wolf back, or if he would even ever be allowed to.  
  
But it was not a time to mull such things over. The wolf led the three of them around the room, into corners, exploring splinters and chunks of wood from a chair it had torn up. Wormtail skittered along at the rear nervously, Prongs moving graceful, Padfoot with an eager lope. The wolf, simply seemed at home; it was hard to describe how it moved in any way other than unearthly, and dangerously quick.   
  
There was the window to look out of, too, where the moon could be seen bright and clear in the dark sky. At that point, the wolf stopped to howl, and Padfoot bayed with it, and Prongs snorted and stamped one hoof, and Wormtail squeaked and tried not to be trampled.   
  
_All through Hogsmeade, men and women awoke in the dead of night, and shut their windows and drew their curtains against the shivers that crept down their spines at the strange sounds coming from the Shrieking Shack. They had dark dreams that night, but they were not nightmares, simply misty shadows pierced only by the pale, fierce light of the full moon._  
  
Padfoot and the wolf tussled more, rolling about on the floor together, but always, the wolf won, coming out on top and triumphant and howling its victories to the skies.  
  
And then, on some unspoken agreement, they all moved for the door, leading the wolf down the stairs and onto the first floor, where Padfoot trotted alongside of it cheerfully, and learned new scents, and made new marks. When they had finished it smelled of wolf fur and dog fur alike, of squeaking rat and noble stag. The wolf seemed to be quite satisfied, moving easily in and out of corners, winding around Padfoot's body to get to places more than once. Padfoot let it; if that was what it pleased, then he was not the one to stop it. Not there, not then.   
  
Again, they play-fought, and the wolf let Padfoot win, if only for a second, before it flipped their positions and came out on top again. They both howled at that, and nuzzled each other's faces, and fell still for a while.  
  
Outside, an owl stirred in the branches of a tree, and young, plump rabbit hid in the comforting arms of a prickly bush. The wolf's ears pricked upwards at the sound, and scented something sweet and young and innocent fill with fear.   
  
It moved suddenly, leaping for the opening to the passageway in the side of the wall, but Padfoot sensed its intentions and tackled it down to the ground, growling low and fierce. Both Wormtail and Prongs moved to block the exit, and watched as the two canine creatures fought, snarling and serious, in the center of the room. The wolf was wild and frenzied when it fought, Padfoot intimidated by the already established order of things, but they both fought with all they had in them, skill and lack of it, anger and refusal.  
  
_Outside_, the wolf begged, _outside!_

_No_, Padfoot insisted.

The wolf howled and buried its teeth in Padfoot's shoulder. Padfoot fell backwards, but used that momentary fumble as a part of his strategy, powerful hind paws kicking up at the wolf's belly, knocking it backwards. They tore at each other's fur with teeth and claws. The wolf bit Padfoot's ear; Padfoot snarled, and whirled, and at last managed to sink his teeth deeply into the tender spot at the base of the wolf's neck. There was a long silence, but the wolf had fallen still.

_Outside_, it still begged him, whining now, _outside!_

_No_, Padfoot repeated again, shaking his head, and dragging the wolf with him in the motion, scraping across the floor. The teeth against the wolf's neck were too much to argue with. _Later_, Padfoot promised, and he pulled back, _outside, later_. The wolf snorted, still, surveying Padfoot above it with cold, glittering eyes. The tension in the room caused Wormtail to squeak, riding in between Prongs's antlers now to better watch the fight. Slowly, the wolf relaxed, flopping over onto its side and panting with the effort of the fight. Padfoot barked once, questioning, and the wolf made a whining sound, one of submission, of acceptance. The wolf lowered its head, and Padfoot turned himself to the task of licking clean the wolf's neck wound as the wolf bathed his bleeding ear in return.

At last, the two curled up on the old mattress set upon the rickety bedframe, as the dark hours began to wane and the world was filled with the eerie gray light of an approaching dawn. Prongs and Wormtail had already fallen asleep, Wormtail still perched on Prongs's forehead, Prongs rested gratefully in a wide corner of the room.   
  
Padfoot licked the wolf clean as it began to doze off, tired out from excitement, still not satisfied with the lack of blood it had spilled that night. It shifted in against his side, and they flanked each other, one black and one brown, two halves of the same beast. The wolf itself was more content than ever it had been, sleeping on a soft bed next to a soft body that fit in up against its own.

Soon after the wolf eyes closed and the wolf body relaxed, side rising and falling in a slow, soothing rhythm, Padfoot felt sleep tug at his own eyes, and settled himself down to rest, chin upon the wolf's shoulder, breath puffing softly out his nose.

_In the wee hours of the morning those who lived in Hogsmeade found at last they could sleep undisturbed, and they dreamt unusually sweet things for times that were so dark and grave._

When Sirius woke he was Sirius once more, only black and white memories of the previous night held in his conscious. The sun was just coming up over the horizon, spreading golden warmth through the small, dusty room. Remus was curled up, naked, in Sirius's arms, and there was a halfmoon mark on his pale neck, made by sharp teeth against supple skin. Sirius's fingers lifted to his own neck, traced the lines of the matching teeth marks that were blatantly felt there, and he grinned foolishly, though sadly. He leaned over the smaller boy, and pressed a kiss to that mark - he knew both marks would leave matching scars that would never truly fade - before he pulled away. If they were all of them to do this again then they would have to get out of there, before Madam Pomfrey came and uncovered their secret.

"James," Sirius hissed, pulling back as carefully as he could from the mattress. But James was already up, putting the place back to normal again, with Peter's help.

"Just get Remus back upstairs," James murmured in reply, "and hurry." Sirius nodded, and moved back to the bed, pulling Remus gently into his arms. Climbing the stairs was slow going, so as not to jostle the boy in his arms -- when he slept this way, he looked so miserably weary, how could Sirius live with himself if he woke him? -- and managed somehow to settle him down lightly on the floor. 

There was no one else in this part of the shack, just him, and Remus, though Remus was sleeping. Sirius paused, thoughtfully, then leaned down, and ghosted his lips once more over the mark Padfoot had made the night before, necessary and claiming, against the wolf's thick fur.

"Love you," he whispered against that contrastingly soft skin, then pulled away and closed the door behind him and hurried down the stairs. 

"Ready?" James asked, giving him a thoughtful look from behind those glasses.

"Ready," Sirius replied.

"So let's get out of here," Peter said, exasperated, and the three scurried toward the tunnel, nothing more and nothing less than what they were: three very normal boys in very abnormal times.

It had begun with just a handful of dark creatures, with a Werewolf named Achille and a Murdrum named Nazaire, a Noctumbra named Ricell and a Sphinx named Nephthys, but others came, and yet others followed, leaving dark tales in darker corners of the shadow that crawled over the earth. 

There was a Sylvicorne, the black brother of the Unicorn, one of the blackest beasts there were, with rolling silver eyes and stomping silver hooves, blood on its teeth and on its broken, jagged horn. It was a creation of the modern age; the opposite of innocence, its teeth and its horn and its hooves made of metal, its breath made of smog. When it scented the Murdrum Nazaire on the air it came prancing out of the depths of a forgotten forest, and joined the parade.

There was the Medusa, and it was said she had been born of the blood from a decapitated Hydra head. Her eyes were an ice green color, the same as that of a Basilisk - though Basilisks were pacifists by nature, and the Medusa was far from being as such -- but no one alive knew this. One glance from them was death, was stone creeping into blood, was the heavy suffocation that her truly petrifying eyes wrought. 

There were the Gorgons close behind her, because they could smell her smell and hear her breath upon the air, and where she went, always, they followed.  
  
There was the Kraken, that made the tar colored depths of the Mediterranean roil with its anger, and it promised the destruction of ships and bound itself to serving the shadow with chains of flotsam and seaweed.

There were the Harpies, their bare breasts smeared with blood and dirt, both fresh and old, their caws filling the air with terror and a metallic, rusted taste. Three of them were all that were left when there once had been hundreds, but between the three of them there was feasting and despoiling enough to make up for hundreds of years during which they had Slept the Sleep of Disbelief.

There were the Sirens, and they learned to sing again when their throats had been dry for centuries. Men and women alike were dashed to bone shards upon their rocks, and they braided their hair with seaweed and seashell and coral, and laughed the light laugh of seafoam.

And they spread their chaos throughout Europe, by sea and by land, sending doubt into the hearts of those who were true and sending shadow into a land of sunlight. 

It was a growing shadow, deep and velvety, and just as suffocating. But somewhere, there was someone, telling stories of golden things - for there is to every dark shadow, the bright sunlight that has cast it. 

It was a dark night, a culmination, perhaps, of all things, held in the simplicity of the costumed evening.

Dobbins was pruning the hedges, though he knew there was no point in doing so. Soon, fall would claim the leaves, and things would turn brown and dead to prepare for the coming of winter. It was an oddly chilly day, for the end of summer, and the sun, it seemed, had set early. Master was entertaining again, had invited the shadowy man over yet again, only this time, the shadowy man had seen fit to accept. Dobbins was far more interested in the shadowy man than he could ever express with words, and so he kept himself busy and from thinking the dark thoughts the shadowy man made him think by pruning the hedges needlessly.

As always on such dark nights, he found himself in the rose garden, though the rosebuds had long since bloomed and wilted and curled up, drifting lifelessly to the earth to feed the roots of the plants that had once given blossom to them.

"The season for roses is past," Mr. Riddle said. 

He had the uncanny habit of just creeping up like that, when you were least suspecting it. Dobbins clipped off a branch he hadn't meant to.

"S'posin' so, sir," he murmured faintly, trying to undo the damage. ( If Master saw that, he would be displeased; best fix it now, before anyone had a chance to see the mistake. ) "But roses has their seasons, after all."

"And roses always bloom again," Mr. Riddle said thoughtfully, "unless, of course, you nip them in the bud."

"You'd have to rip 'em up by the root, pardon my sayin'," Dobbins returned, satisfied with his handiwork for the moment, "they grows back quick sometimes, and they don't fade easy. People rememberin' 'em better 'n most things, when it's been a good season, and all, sir."

"You know so very much about roses, Dobbins," Mr. Riddle said, smiling his thin, dark smile, and Dobbins thought for a second that his eyes had a touch of the color red to them. It must have been the poor lighting, he decided later, for Mr. Riddle's eyes were most certainly an emerald green.

"Spent most o' my life tendin' to 'em, after all, among other things." The sound of the garden shears clipping at leaf and branch commenced once more, Dobbins talking to himself more than anything, as he worked. "I'm lucky to have such a big garden t' tend to, in th'end, seein' as it keeps my hands busy an' it keeps my mind occupied, if y'know what I'm sayin'."

"Oh, yes," Mr. Riddle said, "gardening is a rather pleasant occupation."

"It's more a pleasant pastime," Dobbins murmured thoughtfully, "but as an occupation, it ain' so bad, at tha', after all. An' I like roses, all sorts a roses. Y'get to know them, and y'get to understand them, and all aroun' you, they grow up each season again. Though y'haven't exactly made 'em grow, you've helped 'em to, an' it's nice, sir." There was silence. "Isn't tha' so, sir?"

But when Dobbins turned around, Mr. Riddle was gone. 


	14. Chapter Twelve: Par Un Doux Mystere

All I want are reviews. It's late. I'm tired. The chapter is fifty-six pages long. It took time, effort, and dedication. Those of you who read my fic -- I know you're out there -- just drop me a line to tell me what you think, and I will give you cookies forever.  
Meanwhile, I must thank Saiyanhobbit, faithless beta; Dawnatello, for being ever interested; and Teshi, for being my no. 1 fan. Thank you, and enjoy Chapter XII.

**Chapter XII: Par Un Doux Mystere**

Sunrise happened differently in Rhondda from anywhere else. It came up slow, and far from secret, a proud and showy exhibit. It was as if, somehow, the sun knew that all the men and women of Rhondda were already up, and waiting for the gray skies of dawn to be banished with the golden reaches of the sunshine. It was as if, somehow, the sun shone brighter in Rhondda for that, brighter than it did anywhere else in all the world.

Despite it all, Hector Karnaugh loved it. He was the sort of man to love things "despite it all," and this was no exception. When he was awake to see the sunrise splaying across his lover's face and bathing their bed golden, he had no complaints and he had no qualms, simply a feeling of warmth and peace.

These were feelings he did not bask in all that often, and when he had the chance to, he made the absolute most of it.

It was on a pleasant October morning that Hector rose early enough to watch the sun rise, sliding in through the windows and curling up with feline grace on the wrinkles in the bedsheets. Once the sun was shining brightly, full force, and he found himself growing strangely restless, he turned and brushed his lips over his lover's forehead - still sleeping, lazy thing that he was on the weekends - and slipped himself out of bed for a cold shower. Sometimes, he needed to bring himself back to himself, to remind himself of the earth beneath his feet and the way the world was real, all around him, and not just the glory of a sunrise.

On mornings such as these he always paused to glance himself over in the mirror, hardly because he was vain, but because he needed to reassure himself of who he was, the solid bits, the parts that other people saw, first. What they saw, was someone so very simple, he realized: a man made of shaggy sun-blonde hair, complete with a few premature gray streaks; a man with gray-green eyes that had once been described, to the amusement and the hidden pleasure of his heart, as the color of a stormy sea; a man with a slightly crooked nose, once proud and almost aquiline, until the day it had been broken, and now, appearing only as the memory of something regal; a man with a slight build and almost carelessly carved features, not tall and not short either, with graceful hands and an amused smile and a sigh ever-present in his expression. Hector Karnaugh was aware of the fact that he should have been absolutely nothing special to look at, but when he found that he was watching himself through Damon Aeneid's eyes, he saw himself differently.

_ They met in New York, oddly enough, as neither of them were Americans, and neither of them had planned to stay in New York for more than a few days. Damon had been saving up for the trip for at least a year, which made Hector feel slightly guilty and slightly protective at once. While Hector had come from a stagnant town in Germany, taking a three month-long trip, called 'Sights of the World 'or something silly like that, Damon had come from Wales two years after graduating some unknown college, barely managing to pay his round-trip airfare and his two nights in a no-star hotel._

For some reason they had both decided to go to an art film showing, and when Damon arrived - halfway through the opening credits of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai - the only remaining seat had been the one at Hector's side.

The sound of the shower always woke Hector fully, better than bright sunlight did, and the feel of cool water hitting his bare flesh was both a relief and a comfort to him. He let the spray run over his face and his hair, first, and then turned, to let it hit his back full force, letting out a puffing sigh. Saturday mornings were always hard because they were so easy. On Saturdays, there was nothing to do but eat a late breakfast, early lunch, and tend to the garden, and remember in patched thatching or crooked fencing or differently shaded whitewashing just where you were, and how many people hated you there.  
  
Hector could survive it, Hector could survive most anything life threw to him, but there was again that guilt and that protective nature, all focused around his vivid flash of a lover. Damon could, he knew, take care of himself. Damon could, after all, survive. 

But sometimes, survival simply wasn't enough.

_ "Hullo," said a voice behind Hector, as he was stretching his sore muscles outside of the theater, after the movie. Hector turned, slowly, to find the young man who'd sat next to him earlier, simply standing there. As soon as Hector acknowledged his presence, he was grinning, rust colored red hair falling into sparkling gray eyes. "I'm Damon, and I can't exactly say 'it's very nice to meet you,' seeing as we haven't met yet, but I'd like it to be. Very nice to meet you, that is."_

Hector blinked, twice, startled by the way the younger man's face was so honest and radiant, and then felt himself smiling, unable not to.

"'lo, back," Hector said, holding out a hand. "I'm Hector, and now, I believe, I can at least say it's very nice, to meet you."

The sound of the shower was comforting to him, as always, rhythmic and soft but enough to keep his mind occupied by the pattern of sound it made. His wet hair hung around his face and brushed coolly against his neck. He kept his hair long as he did simply because he liked the feel of his wet hair against his neck, especially in the summer. Water ran over the bridge of his nose and he kept still for a while, concentrating on the sound of his own breathing mixed with the sound of the shower.

Knowing Damon would join him soon, he turned the knob from warm to hot, because that was the way his lover liked a shower, even when the days were far from cold.  
_  
They had dinner at a cheap diner, a meal which Damon paid for, and they bought expensive champagne, which Hector purchased, and they shared it in Hector's hotel room because it was levels beyond Damon's own. They spoke of Rhondda, the town where Damon had grown up, and Hector loved the look in those sincere eyes as the other remembered aloud. For most of his life, Hector had tried to escape the place of his childhood, while Damon wanted only to go back._

During the course of the evening they learned trivial yet vastly important things; favorite colors and favorite foods and most embarrassing moments; favorite movies and favorite songs and most amusing family stories. There were certain things about himself and about his past that Hector could not hope to bring up while making supposed small talk, but he told Damon more than anyone else knew and Damon told him everything. The champagne was good, very good, and conducive to the easiness with which they spoke, but they remembered all that was said the next morning because it was that important to them, to remember.

Once they'd finished the bottle of champagne, they stopped talking in favor of starting to kiss, and with the kissing came the touching, and it was awkward as could be expected, but more amazing than any sex had ever been before, for either of them. They said things there that were wordless and loud, careless and gentle, little words that ended up being only "yes" and "yes" and "oh" until they simply started to cry out, having no hold left on language. 

On his back on his king size hotel bed, Hector lifted his eyes to Damon's face above him and they watched each other until they both orgasmed for the last time and fell asleep together in a tangle of sweaty limbs.

Hector's lips curled up into a softened smile, remembering, as he lathered up a washcloth with soap. It was Damon's soap, and it reminded Hector of the way he'd smelled, coming close for their first kiss.

_ "You notice the littlest things," Damon told him after they showered together, and were eating breakfast in bed. ( The excellent room service Hector had thrilled the younger man to no end. )_

"D'you want another pancake?" Was all Hector had said in return, and Damon had said yes, he would. ( Hector found the younger man could eat twice his weight at breakfast alone, and watched him, oddly fascinated by the sight. )

Later that afternoon Hector cancelled the rest of his 'Sights of the World' trip because he'd found the one sight he actually wished to be seeing. The next day found Hector taking a propeller plane to Wales with Damon in the seat beside him, leaving all but the Muggle world behind him, as mere memories of the past.

Such times had already grown dust as legends in the back of his mind, unimportant and no longer necessary. The only time Hector thought of them were on the occasional Saturday morning, and so he would take cold showers to wash himself free of such things. He had never told Damon of magic and Muggles, of wizarding schools and wands, of past folly and failure. It was never needed, and it was easier to put such times behind you when there was no one there to remind you of them.

When Damon pushed the shower curtain open and joined Hector beneath the spray, Hector leaned into the hold of his arms gratefully. Sometimes, he needed only to be held up, and Damon was strong enough and willing enough to do just that for as long as Hector should need it. 

"Morning," Damon murmured, voice still sleepy, his accent heightened.

"Morning," Hector returned, enjoying the feel of wet skin against wet skin.

_ "I've told you what's coming, but I don't want to stay around to see it come," Hector murmured, but his voice was firm, and it was obvious there would be no dissuading him._

"If you've made up your mind to it," Albus said, with some degree of disappointment, "and you have obviously done just that, then none of us can hope to persuade you to do otherwise."

"No." Hector sounded somber, guilty, but no less determined than he had a moment ago. His things were packed; he had a down jacket on, not a cloak, for travelling with Muggles in the cold weather. "This is my decision. You can't." 

With Dumbledore's grave eyes still fixed on him, Hector turned and left and did not look behind him, determining then and there never to go back. He hadn't seen Albus Dumbledore, or any of the others, since he last spoke with Minerva, two minutes before he truly departed.

"What are we to have for breakfast, then?" Damon asked, nuzzling against Hector's ear.

"The choice is, as always, yours to make." Hector hardly ever ate breakfast, at least not with the zeal Damon did, but then, Hector rarely ever did anything with the zeal Damon did, and after being together for as long as they had been, they'd both of them grown used to it.

"I suppose it's got to be pancakes." Damon sighed, but he was smiling. "Saturday morning pancakes." He touched Hector's cheek delicately, one arm wrapping around his waist and pulling him close. "And they always make you smile like nothing else can, after all." Damon was right about most things, about where to touch Hector and where to kiss him, mostly. And he was always right about what should be done to make Hector smile, as if it came absolutely naturally to him. No doubt it did. It was one of those very pleasant things about life. Hector felt, rather than asked himself to, smile.

_ "I never thought you'd be the sort to run away, Hector," Minerva said to him, moving easily from cat to woman, from the shadows into the sunlight, looking the same amount of disapproving in both forms, though behind her spectacles she seemed distinctly more helpless, and equally pained as Hector himself._

"Well, I suppose everyone was wrong about me." Hector clutched his suitcase tighter, tight enough for his knuckles to turn white, so that he could steady himself. "I was asked to look into the future for you, and I did that. But I'm a coward, and I refuse to meet it face to face. That's my choice to make, after all."

"The others will miss you, Hector," Minerva murmured. "For heaven's sake, I'll miss you!" Hector shrugged once, letting his shoulders drop, and droop.

"I'll miss you, too."

"Have you evenare you just leaving, I mean? How many people have you seen fit to say goodbye to?" Minerva sounded too distraught, now, to be obstinate, or even admonishing. It did hurt, to hear her that way, but he couldn't stay.

"I've told Albus I'm leaving, and now, you. You can tell the others what you will, whatever you wish, but I can't-I can't. I am sorry. For all I'll be leaving behind. I'll miss it, but it's better to lose things, this way." The explanation was weak, Hector knew it was, but it was all he had left of himself to offer.

"Is it?" Minerva asked. How very like her, Hector had the audacity to think.

"For me, yes," Hector replied simply.

The year was nineteen fifty nine. Hector Karnaugh -- age nineteen, the most promising young wizard to come from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry since Albus Dumbledore himself had graduated many years ago - squared his shoulders and left the Hogwarts grounds a complete coward and even more of a failure. He didn't want to see his friends hurt. That was all. It was a selfish desire but he had made up his mind to harbor it, and hold tight to it.   
  
It was eleven-thirty in the morning and he took a Muggle plane back home to Germany. At twelve-twenty-one, he ate his last Chocolate Frog and broke his wand in half, and was done with it all.

They had sex in the shower because Damon lived these days to see Hector's hazel eyes alight with pleasure only orgasm could bring. Damon was younger but he had a bigger builder, and could easily hold Hector up against the shower wall, if the older man wrapped his legs around his waist. It was nice, that way, because they liked to watch each other and whatever foolish expressions they made while this close, while this filled with pleasure. It was fast and good and over quickly, done to wake the both of them up properly and set the mood for the rest of the day, and when they had both found climax they cleaned themselves off and dried themselves off and wrapped towels around their waists and trotted down the stairs together, into the kitchen. They needed no words and no 'I love you's, touching and staying as close as possible, when they could. They pulled apart when Hector went to make the pancake batter and Damon went to make the tea, but they continued to move companionable around the empty spaces in the kitchen, knowing each other well enough to understand the air that moved between them.

"Do you want bananas in your pancakes?" Hector broke the silence first. Damon nodded.

"English or Irish Breakfast?" Damon asked, after a few more minutes of silence had passed, two different tea boxes in his hands. Hector nodded towards the English Breakfast, on the left, and Damon grinned and went to it.

All in all and despite it all, Hector loved Saturday mornings, Damon kissing pancake batter from his fingers, his body lazy and content and, occasionally, rumbling with laughter. As it was, Hector was the sort of man who loved things despite themselves, despite himself, and what he loved he loved with all his heart and all his body and all his soul. There were many things about Hector Karnaugh that had changed over the years but he was still, fundamentally, the same man as he ever was. He was truly irrepressible, but in a soft-spoken, unnoticed way.

Halfway through Damon's second helpings of banana pancakes the doorbell rang, tinkling surreally through their consciousness before they realized what it was.

"Funny," Hector murmured, setting his napkin down on the table by his plate and moving almost immediately to the door. They rarely had visitors, and never were they unannounced, and they certainly never came late on Saturday mornings.

"Hector-- wait--" Damon swallowed a mouthful of pancake and stood quickly, hurrying after the older man, "it could be-- just, don't open the door until--" The warning came too late, for Hector had already undone both locks and was opening the door to the late morning sunshine that bathed all of Rhondda in its warmth. Damon wasn't the sort of man who worried often but something had made his throat go dry and his chest go tight. Still holding on to the doorknob, Hector was frozen in place, body illumined by the bright sunlight.

Standing in the doorway was a woman, not young but with a strikingly interesting face -- the features were sharply cut, and strong, and her skin was creamy and pale, and while she was not conventionally beautiful, the sight of her took your breath way. Her long, wind-tousled auburn hair was pulled back in a loose braid that hung at least a few inches past her waist, and wisps of hair had been blown free to frame her face by the fierce Rhondda wind. Her eyes were a cutting gray-blue, the sort that would have been deadly alluring had her expression included a smile, and seemed now to be burning, intense and unrelenting. There was no makeup on her face. Her pale lips were pressed in a tight line, and she held her hands, clenched into fists, at her sides. A too-big white blouse and colorful skirts swished with her long braid in the zealous wind.

For a while, all three of them were silent, the only sound the rasping of the wind and the creaking of the door hinges.

Then, Hector spoke to that unforgiving, half-feminine face, and the sound of his voice was terribly unfamiliar to Damon's ears:

"'Bella?"

_Are you going to Scarborough Fair?  
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme  
Remember me to one who lives there  
For once she was a true love of mine._

Have her make me a cambric shirt  
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme  
Without a seam or fine needle work  
And then she'll be a true love of mine.

Have her wash it in yonder dry well  
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme  
Where ne'er a drop of water e'er fell  
And then she'll be a true love of mine.

Have her find me an acre of land  
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme  
Between the sea and over the sand  
And then she'll be a true love of mine.

Plow the land with the horn of a lamb  
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme  
Then sow some seeds from north of the dam  
And then she'll be a true love of mine.

If she tells me she can't, I'll reply  
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme  
Let me know that at least she will try  
And then she'll be a true love of mine.

Love imposes impossible tasks  
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme  
Though not more than any heart asks  
And I must know she's a true love of mine.

Dear, when thou has finished thy task  
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme  
Come to me, my hand for to ask  
For thou then art a true love of mine. 

That year, in the halls of Hogwarts, it was either be Figg, Fletcher or Karnaugh, or want to be Figg, Fletcher or Karnaugh, but there was no in between to be found. 

Arabella was a striking girl, one who commanded some strange sort of awe from girls and boys alike, and her challenging eyes terrified you and entranced you, all at once. She was a glowing creature, filled with vibrancy and passion, and she moved as if she owned the air she walked through, proud and unshakable.

Mundungus was charming, and there were no other words that could properly describe him. That smile, that laugh, that insouciant shrug to his shoulders, that familiar lounging posture, kept all female eyes on him, and other, more shadowed looks of longing from those who should not have worshipped him thus.

Hector had a smile that was different than the other boy's, thoughtful and softened and shining, more of a soft glow than a bright flash. And his hair, sandy-blond, would fall into his eyes when he flashed it, so that he was half made of shadow, and half made of this golden, untouchable spirit, and no one could look away from that expression.

Together, they were three visually complex friends seemingly joined at the hip, and their friendship ran thicker than blood. From the day they had met, they had come to an unspoken pact, an unforgotten agreement, to protect and to defend and to uphold each one's devoted loyalty until death did them part. There was no question in any of their minds as to whether this would remain the same of the ages, and their classmates could sense this devotion, and they were jealous, but the times were such that they respected rather than coveted.

The times were sweet, but Hector swore that Mundungus's eyes were sweeter.

"Doesn't make sense, does it," Mundungus said absently, biting hard into an apple, the sound of skin breaking and juice bursting too enticing to Hector's ears, "that we're going to be leaving in a month. I don't feel that old."

"No," Hector admitted softly, watching the sunlight fleck Mundungus's dark brown hair, stretching his arms above his head, "no, I don't think anyone ever does." Mundungus offered the apple over and Hector took a bite, teeth against the other half of the apple, unmarred. 

"We'll have a good season for apples," Mundungus murmured thoughtlessly, running his fingers through his hair. 

Beside the both of them, Arabella was silent, moving through her own world. She drifted in and out of conversations, speaking so passionately at times, and saying nothing at all at others. She always listened, of course, but only commented when she deemed it absolutely necessary. It made everything she said somehow all the more important, when she chose to say it. Now, she was watching Hector watch Mundungus, and watching Mundungus watch nothing at all, and feeling acutely protective.

This, she told herself then, would be the undoing of them all, of the easy apple times, of the strolls through Hogwarts grounds, of childhood and its innocence.

And for Hector, her heart ached.

For as long as Arabella could remember it had been this way, unspoken but always present, the foundation for the fierce strength of their friendship. Wholly and fully, she loved Hector, as a friend and as a brother and as something more, and wholly and fully she understood he would never love her as such. And, irrationally and terribly, Hector loved Mundungus, watched him with sorrowful puppy eyes and moved along beside him and watched him, and said nothing, for he knew that Mundungus was strong and powerful but would break if he knew of this love unrequited. Mundungus would, in a foolish and Mundungus sort of way, decide that it was his fault, and the fragile but blooming love betwixt the three would crumble.

They could only love as friends and protect as friends and spend the time as friends, in the cool, end-of-spring air.

For almost seven years now, it had been enough.

Hector carelessly passed the apple back to Mundungus, who offered it to Arabella. She shook her head; Mundungus adored apples, and she had never understood why. As a fruit they were rather plain, unless they were truly outstanding, and even then she would rather a good nectarine or peach, something more juicy and more yielding.

"Well," Mundungus said, offhandedly, "we certainly don't have anything to worry about, now do we."

The sunlight winked knowledgeably, yet impassively, through the lattice of leaves that fringed the edge of the forest, whispering somber, golden secrets that they were too young yet to comprehend.

Damon had, as always, been the first to speak, grasping hold of one of Hector's hands and pulling him out of the doorway.

"I don't know who you are," he had added, almost helplessly, speaking to Arabella, "but there's extra tea, and pancakes, if you're hungry." Hector had turned to stare at his lover, and the look would have been accusatory if it hadn't been so broken. After all, he told himself later as they all three sat around the kitchen table with cups of cooling tea, Damon had no way of knowing what he had invited into the house.

It was hardly Damon's fault, at all. 

"It's been a long time, Hector," Arabella murmured, and took a light sip from her teacup. Her eyes were hooded, filled with shadows the color of tea. 

"There was a reason for that," Hector replied, his voice dull and empty.

In his chair, Damon looked from the stranger to the man he had spent the past three years with, and thought that the woman seemed to him far more familiar, though he couldn't place why. Hector's face seemed gray and weary, and too numb to register any sort of anger. 

In his chair, Damon shifted uncomfortably, and tried his best to hide behind his cup of tea.

"You didn't even say good-bye." Arabella poked at a pancake with her fork, and then sliced off a corner vehemently, and then poked at it once more. Her movements were as they always were, sharp and deliberate and pointed, used in such cases as weapons. Hector did not shy away as he once would from them. It seemed as if he was inured to the cut of them, now; inured to the cut of everything, for that matter. 

"Because there was no point to it," Hector returned, "Minerva gave me hell and Albus gave me standard Albus and what was I supposed to think you would give me, if I tried to say good-bye?"

"It wasn't me you were worried about," Arabella snapped back, "it wasn't me you didn't have the courage for."

"You didn't see it with your own eyes." Hector felt his throat go dry, and took a deep swallow of the soothing tea. "You, you don't know anything at all about it."

Silence descended upon the room, the sound of teacup clinking against saucer or fork against plate as Arabella continued to poke at her banana pancake. It seemed oddly comical, the simplicity of her movements, the oddity of the bloody banana pancake. It wasn't comical enough to break the tension, though.

Agonizingly slow minutes passed, dragging themselves along on broken limbs. At last, Damon felt he would either have to break the silence, or the silence would break him. He coughed, once, and set his teacup down with a clatter of porcelain against porcelain.

"So," he said, hoping he sounded casual, "if nobody's going to introduce us," and he directed a pointed, but questioning look in Hector's direction, "we might as well introduce ourselves, right?" He reached a hand across the table, offering it out to the woman to shake. "Hallo, I'm Damon, and I'm not sure if it's going to be nice to meet you yet, but here's hoping it will be, right?"

Silence again.

Arabella moved slowly, lifting a graceful but by no means delicate hand to take Damon's own, shaking it firmly. 

"Yes," she agreed softly, "here's hoping, I suppose." She turned immediately to Hector after that, pinning him, trapping him, with her gaze. "He has Mundungus's eyes."

"Oh," Hector muttered, helpless, "oh, do shut up."

"Give it a rest, Hector," Arabella hissed, teeth clenched, "I've shouted you down before and I will shout you down now if need be. I'm not here to visit, or to be polite."

"Obviously not," Hector began, but Arabella cut him off easily.

"I don't believe you understand me correctly." Arabella knit her brow together in a challenging frown. "You left us, you left us all, and we hated you for a while and then we remembered you only fondly, as something that betrayed us, as something we loved anyway. But we knew that you'd gone for a reason and we let you be because of it, respected you as you did not, in the end, respect us. If we had wished to find you, we could have. We let you alone. We let you be." Hector's fingers gripped his teacup tighter, almost tight enough to break it, but not quite. He knew better than to try to say anything, not when Arabella was like this. "But it's necessary, now. We need you, even if the others are too stupid or too honorable or too hurt to come and ask your help. I won't beg you; you don't deserve that. But I will ask you, and I will hope that some of who you once were remains, so that I don't have to hate you all over again."

"Leave me be, 'Bella."

"Don't call me that, Hector. The time for such nicknames are over!" Arabella slammed her teacup down upon the table, her eyes blazing. "If you're selfish enough that you can't see your cowardice will let innocent people die-"

"Leave me be, 'Bella!" Hector pushed himself away from the table, chair clattering across the floor, and both Damon and Arabella pulled back and away in astonishment and almost-fear, at the suddenness of the motion, the passion in his voice. Damon had never seen his lover behave this way, and he knew he never again wanted to, though there was something about his eyes that could make your blood race and your heart pound.

"Wouldn't Mundungus be proud," Arabella murmured helpless as Hector turned his back to her. She sounded suddenly old and tired, rather than vindictive and proud, but it seemed to simply be another tactic. Even the sag to her shoulders, the slump in her posture, might have been part of a plan.

"Is he waiting outside to start on me next?"

"He wouldn't have come even if I had told him I was going to see you. You hurt him more than you know, more than he'll admit to."

"That doesn't matter anymore," Hector murmured, but his voice was soft, and unsteady, "because I've left those years behind me."

"You idiot," Arabella muttered, "you can't ignore what is for what you think you want."

Again, silence reigned in the room. Damon looked once more between the two, and felt himself grow ill with how little he realized he did know about Hector's past. He didn't know who this was, who this 'Mundungus' they spoke of was, and what all three of them had been to each other, once. It was blatantly clear that he could not protect Hector if he didn't know what it was he was to be protecting Hector from.

"I suppose," Arabella said at last, "you deserve to know what's going on. Damon, was it?"

And she turned to him.

And she told him.

_That was the year when they first knew each other, first learned how to know each other, and they loved the feeling of knowing so much, and so instinctively. _

Arabella immediately found a way to sneak herself into the boys' dormitory each night, and they nestled in, all three together, in the very center of Hector's bed. In the middle was Hector, of course, as he was always in the middle of all things, with Mundungus on his left and Arabella on his right. They curled in around him, Mundungus with an arm tossed around Hector's waist, Arabella with her cheek pressed against Hector's shoulder. It was simple, this way, and so innocent.

In the mornings, Hector would wake to find both Arabella and Mundungus had gone, their presence dictated by the rising and setting of the sun. And Hector would long for the day to pass and the night to come, to feel that safe and that at home once again.

For the first few years, when they were still young, it seemed normal for such tenderness, for such open displays of affection.

As the years passed they remained innocent through that last remaining tradition, a tangle of each other's arms. Though they were aware as they grew older that they were so vulnerable yet, all curled together - as Adam and Eve Knew at last of their nakedness - to break that tradition would be to abandon the Eden they had cultivated, that so sheathed them in security.

Soon enough, they would grow up. For now, they were their brothers' keepers.

During their second year at Hogwarts, when they were young yet, it was part of the core curriculum to witness a trial for Magical History courses. 'Most wizards today,' their professor had told them, 'never know how it is to condemn their colleagues, and know even less what it is their colleagues are being condemned to.'

It had seemed, at first, to be the center of much excitement, a trip that excused them from two whole days of schoolwork and classes. Arabella spent the entirety of the trial paying close attention, in deep thought, and even deeper fascination. At times, Mundungus fidgeted, but for the most part he watched the goings-on as if it were a Muggle movie, displaced from the business, and enjoying it tremendously. Hector himself watched in unreadable silence, obviously as entranced as Arabella was, though there was less studiousness in his gaze, and more pain, more compassion.

The wizard on trial was young, no more than thirty, and he had the air of a beaten dog to him, in the slope of his shoulders and the despair of his eyes. He sat in silence during the proceedings, with his hands folded in his lap and his gaze fixed sightlessly ahead. From the moment Hector had stepped into the trial room - a large room, spectator seats circling around the center so that any who came to watch looked down upon the trial, an important member of the Ministry seated in the middle, the defendant before him - he had decided that this man was innocent. But the evidence was not in his favor, the evidence was without any loopholes, and as fact after fact was brought before the committee, who sat in a ring around the room beneath the spectator-level, all began to frown. It was quite obvious from the start what the outcome would be.

Hector found he could not bear it.

It wounded him in spirit and it wounded him in soul, and he kept his hands tightly clasped before him, almost as if in prayer. His chin rested upon his white knuckles, and he did not sleep the first night, the night before the sentencing.

"Germaine Blackroot," the member of the Ministry said, the afternoon of the second day, "you are sentenced to Azkaban, and there shall you spend the rest of your years, till your last day shutters, and draws to a close." The sentence was so rehearsed, Hector noticed, that it almost sounded dry, and bored, though it was the curse upon this man's -- this innocent man's -- life. 

At least, Hector's muscles began to relax. At least, he felt himself calm and felt the tension fade from his bones. At least, the agony of waiting and the anxiety of hope were no longer to be harbored in his chest.

But that did not change the simple fact that it was not fair_._

He walked behind Arabella and Mundungus as the class left the trial room, after Germaine Blackroot had been taken away by one dark, hollow souled creature, and it did not take Mundungus more than a handful of seconds to catch the blank expression on his friend's face. It always hurt, to see such an empty quality in Hector's eyes, because they were bright with softened laughter at most times, bright with the intensity of tenderness and youth.

Mundungus patted Arabella on the shoulder once and dropped back, falling into place at Hector's side. A moment later he slipped an arm around him, and held him up, and murmured soft things reminiscent of kindness and laughter against his ear. Arabella turned her head back over her shoulder and focused her eyes behind her curiously, to watch. She saw Mundungus at last coax Hector to speak, softly at first, and monosyllabic, and then a little louder, and a little more, until the specter of failed justice lifted from him, and he was no longer shrouded with its shadow.

That was the year when they grew into themselves, as who they were and what they would be. It was the year when Mundungus was best at talking to people and understanding them, the year when Arabella was best at seeing straight through any disguises, the year when Hector could light up a room simply by stepping into it. They loved each other for what they themselves weren't and for what the others were, loved each other for the completion they found, whole and infinitely powerful, when all of them combined to become one. Arabella was brilliant at Potions and Arithmancy, had a head for calculations and for figures and had a hand and a heart for distilling magic into something that would fit in a bottle. Mundungus had a knack for exceeding above all others in Care of Magical Creatures and there was no one that could excel more than he in Charms, as if personality was linked with the puissance of magic. And Hector was made for Divination, saw easily into the past and even more easily into the future, marked with the gift of power over time, a true Oracle as there had not been for hundreds of years.

And they were the brightest stars in the halls of Hogwarts for seven glorious, sheltered years.

And when Hector saw the shadow, in the year that ended their childhood, it only followed that Figg, Fletcher and Karnaugh were to be those designated for prevention and, should it indeed come to pass as Hector saw it, those designated to fight.

There was in the beginning no protest, for there was nowhere else to go, and greatness promised in the depths of Hector's crystal ball. The shadow was simply a shadow, no more threatening than mist, and just as easily dispersed. Arabella worked in secret, part of a planning committee that even Hector knew hardly anything about. Mundungus traveled for the better part of the first year, all of the summer and most of the winter, returning home to Hogwarts only during the holidays.

With the chill winter wind howling outside the windows and the snow falling, blanketing everything in the purest color white, Arabella, Mundungus and Hector drank butterbeer together, feeling wonderful and childish, and laughed as they gave each other presents by the hearth. They offered each other tinsel-colored trinkets, unnecessary things, bracelets or cakes or socks, even, a book or two, a new scarf. They offered each other also tokens to prepare themselves against what rose up on the horizon, lurking beneath the chaste snow.

At last, Mundungus opened up a bottle of champagne he had procured on one of his short-lived trips to France, and they shared it, and another, and another, and got drunk together, and toasted to things both sweepingly important and minutely trivial.

"Next year," Mundungus promised his two closest friends, one closer than a brother, the other more than just a sister, "next year, we'll all three of us go to France, and we'll be wonderfully lazy there, instead of running about and wasting time by preparing."

"I'd like to go home for a while," Hector murmured thoughtfully, "I'd like to visit Germany."

"France and Germany, then," Mundungus promised, lifting his champagne glass a second time, so that the firelight caught the bubbles inside and the long, fluted neck of the glass, and seemed to wink, glinting, at the other two.

"I'd rather see America," Arabella added, voice wry, "to find out what all the fuss is really about."

"Then we'll go around the world," Mundungus said, suddenly somber and grave, "all three of us, as we're meant to be." Hector watched his serious eyes lit up by the dwindling flicker from the hearth and he looked away, though he, too, lifted his champagne glass.

"I'll toast to such a trip," he said.

"And I will, too." Arabella never got drunk, it seemed, or never enough to cloud her senses, or ever make impotent that brassy, brave voice.

"Next year," Mundungus said. Their glasses clinked.

"Or whenever it may be," Hector put in, but it was too soft to be heard, and with wishful promises such as they made in those times, it was deemed too unimportant to acknowledge.  
  
That was the year when they all three of them slept together last, still children, really, young as they were, young as they did not act. Mundungus found that his arm still fit around Hector's waist and Arabella found that her chin still slipped perfectly against the dip in Hector's shoulder, and Hector found that if he could live this way, never moving from the warmth of the bed and the sweet feel of those familiar bodies against his, he would be quite lazy indeed, but quite content. 

'I love you,' they said to each other that night, Arabella to Hector though she did not speak the words, Hector to Mundungus though he did not speak the words, Mundungus to the both of them and meaning it differently, though he did not speak the words. They never once, in all their time together, spoke the words, for words were truly not enough to name what passed between them, their eyes and the casual feel of their bodies pressed close.

They never once, in all their time together, spoke the words, and never again got the chance to.

The next day Mundungus left for Egypt and Arabella went to a meeting in a place unnamed for secrecy's sake, and they wrote each other letters back and forth, some short and some long, and met once more only, for the Easter of the next year. Then, Mundungus was tanned and looked far older, and Arabella's eyes had gotten far lighter yet far colder, and Hector had begun to see the things he did not wish to think upon, much less speak of. Then, they realized they were becoming strangers, because times such as they were entering into made friends of strangers and strangers of friends, and enemies of all. 

Then, they found they had nothing left to say to each other, simply sitting close and tense without touching, and longing for the days that were, and knowing they might very well never return again. Arabella had kissed Hector's cheek when they said goodbye, and Mundungus had held him, and soon after Hector made up his mind to leave forever, so that the times he remembered would not mix and be spoiled by the times that would be. 

'And no,' he resigned himself, 'I will not tell them good-bye, because we never had to say such things, once. Perhaps, if I am lucky, they will understand.'

And his bed was kept achingly empty for endless years, until he met Damon.

Time moved slowly. Summer turned to autumn and autumn to winter, the chill in the air growing stronger and the days shorter with each passing week. Sirius grew used to that one night out of every month when the moon rose full in the sky, when the three who had no excuses got little to no sleep. The wolf, too, got used to its visitors, its unexpected companions, and though it never became less aggressive, it learned to be less angry. Its pack, it discovered, wanted only to help it, though each full moon it raged and howled and begged to be set free into the forest, and each full moon its request was denied.

But it learned to live with the patterns of its disappointment well, and its pack, its pack mate, was there, now. The wolf took things as they came, and accepted at last what it could not alter.

Hours, days, weeks passed, blending into months and blurring in their minds.

And then, winter was upon them.

It came in with gales of wind and sudden snowstorms, and pounded against doorways and slipped into cracks in mortar and stone. It was strong enough to shatter glass and icy enough to freeze blood, and those first frigid nights Sirius was glad to have Remus's warmth along with his own in Remus's bed, glad because it was a comfort, glad because he knew Remus would not be cold. Secrets were stronger with such crisp air, and all emotions were heightened, carried like Muggle electricity through strengthened conductivity.

Classwork was hardly the first thing on anyone's mind. Remus's time alone in the library, time previously spent studying or being tutored in Potions by Severus, became time with Sirius in the library, with Sirius reading over his shoulder, with Sirius sitting by his side, with Sirius's hand on his thigh. Remus's time alone in the Common Room, time previously spent with a book in his lap, became time with Sirius in the Common Room, with Sirius's head in his lap instead, with Sirius waiting for them to be alone, so they could sit together, twined together, comfortably.

And it was almost like being alone, in a way, only more complete than any aloneness would be able to offer.

It was a tender, portentous winter, and more often than not Divination classes were canceled because of whatever promises lurked in the air and in the tea leaves.

Hogsmeade weekends became less childish and more filled with a sense of independence, and, sticking close together, Sirius and Remus held gloved hands as they moved past the stores, stopping only to buy chocolates, or a steaming cup of cocoa, and share the sweetness between them. 

On one weekend they skirted around the edge of the trees, where the snowfall had been previously undisturbed. Sirius, incorrigible as always, lay himself down at one point, and made snow angels, while Remus watched, and wondered why anyone would wish to soak their robes through with chilly damp that way.

"Michael taught me how, you know," Sirius murmured afterwards, standing by Remus to survey his work, "first winter I remember."

The snow angel seemed only a gray-blue shadow against the contrasting paleness of the snow. It was hardly angelic at all, seeming more menacing and bruised than holy. Sirius seemed to notice this blatant inconsistency, and frowned. 

"I'd make one, as well," Remus murmured, "but it's rather cold, isn't it?" Sirius grinned almost ruefully, slipping his arms around Remus's waist. 

"Come on," he pleaded softly, forehead against forehead, "come on, mine's all lonely." Remus's lips quirked upwards into a wry, questioning smile.

"How can it possibly be lonely?"

"Just look at it!" Taking advantage of Remus's moment of distraction - eyes turning to cast a glance at the snow angel once more - Sirius's arms tightened around Remus's waist, and he gave up all desire to be standing, and down they both went. Remus opened his mouth, about to cry out, and then clamped it shut as powdery snow ghosted up around them, and he landed on Sirius's chest, knocking the breath out of the bigger boy. Sirius grunted, a sound like an 'ooph' slammed from his lips.

"That was your fault," Remus stated, once he'd regained composure, enough to feel slightly, bemusedly put out.

"Yes," Sirius said with a deep sigh, "yes, it was. Make an angel with me, Moony?" Remus sighed, deeply, but he was trapped as always, and not unpleasantly, by Sirius's eyes. "And you won't get your robes wet, either," Sirius added, puffing his cheeks up. "C'mon. Please?" With another, deeper sigh, Remus shrugged and gave up completely, because Sirius was more stubborn than anyone else he knew, and you could never win when he got that way. Leaning down, Remus brushed a light kiss over Sirius's lips, trying to move himself so that he wasn't elbowing the other boy in the stomach, or crushing his ribs.

"Fine," he acquiesced, because it was easier than trying to protest at this point. 

And so Sirius guided his limbs and spread Remus out atop him, chest against chest, arm over arm, leg over leg, and they moved together that way, arm over arm, leg over leg. It was almost like flying, if you closed your eyes, like flying into snowdrifts. Sirius's legs spread, and pressed shut, and so Remus's legs spread, and pressed shut. And Sirius's arms lifted over his head, pushing through snow and more snow, and then they pressed back against his sides, and so Remus's arms lifted over Sirius's head, pushing through snow and more snow, and then they pressed back against Sirius's sides.

They stood at last and moved away carefully, so as not to disturb their work. One wing of the second angel had intruded into the space of the first, and it was bigger, less dark, less of a bruise in the snow and more of a footprint, a remembrance, a token of who they were and where they had been.

"That's better," Sirius decided at last, brushing snow off his back as best he could, before it could melt and soak through to his skin.  
  
"Yes," Remus replied, and meant it.

That night there was another snowstorm, and the snow angel they had made was covered up under new snowdrifts, and Sirius caught a cold from lying in the snow, but that was the way the world worked, awkward, and fleeting. 

During the holidays the presents were sparse and few, because it seemed trite tokens of affection bought by limited resources of pocket money could not properly express the wealth of affection that had grown between them all. They sat together, Christmas Eve, Sirius, Remus, James, Lilly, and Peter too, and they talked well past midnight, and fell asleep by the dwindling fire, all heaped on a couch in the Gryffindor Common Room. When they woke there was one large present at James's feet, and the boy tore into it eagerly, wrapping paper flying everywhere.

The package itself was merely a bundle of fabric, and James frowned as he unfolded it, and held it up. It was a cloak, they discovered, made of some unknown cloth that shimmered of a thousand colors, when it caught the early morning sunlight.

"Well," Lilly said, head inclined to one side, "it's hardly fashionable, but put it on, anyway. It should be good for a laugh."

"Oh, thanks," James muttered, and undid the clasp at the front, and swung it over his shoulders, and was gone.

"Bloody hell," Sirius breathed, pausing mid-stretch and mid-yawn, "that was fantastic." Peter, Remus and Lilly merely stared, not quite believing that they were seeing what it was they just saw. 

"What was?" James asked, confused, and then he looked down, and blinked. "Oh," he said, blinking again, a few times, rapidly, "I seem to have gone missing."

"An Invisibility Cloak," Sirius murmured, still awestruck, "a bloody real Invisibility Cloak. I always knew your parents were loaded, but James, James, James, do you have any idea how much these things cost?" James said nothing, though his mouth opened and closed a few times, without any sound. Sirius stood, and quickly, hurrying over to inspect, not quite daring to touch, though, the space where James's body should have been. "And d'you know what this means, James, you lucky arse? D'you have any idea what this means? We can go anywhere we want, anytime we want, without anyone, ever, getting in our way."

"Like you weren't enough trouble already," Lilly said, managing at last to find her voice, though it was oddly breathless. 

"We'll be unstoppable," Sirius went on, "we won't have to wait until late-for the-you know, the" He blinked towards Remus, and grew a little quieter, just for some sake of secrecy. Remus bowed his head, though it seemed to be in thanks, not in admonition.

"Right, that's what you need," Lilly muttered, keeping her distance, choosing instead to rub a sore muscle in her neck and avert her eyes elsewhere. It was unnerving, she admitted, it was unnerving and strange to see James's head floating in the middle of the room, with no body attached to it.

"Let me try it on?" Sirius pleaded, taking a step back to take in the whole effect. "Just for a minute, James, please?"

"Not bloody likely," James spoke at last, trying not to stare down at himself, trying not to seem as startled and childishly excited as Sirius was acting. "I haven't done anything with it yet!" And with that, he pulled the hood up over his head, and disappeared completely to the eyes of the others in the room. Lilly actually gasped and Sirius exclaimed, disappointed and absolutely enthralled.

"Did you see that, Remus?" He turned, wild-eyed, to the boy on the couch, and then whirled a full circle, in search of James, though he knew it would be impossible to see him. "C'mon, James, let me have a go with it!"

And that was the beginning of everything. As Sirius said -- a flash of truth revealed in sleepy astonishment -- they truly were unstoppable, now.

Severus Snape liked Potions for a number of reasons. The first was obvious: because he was inherently good at it, skilled without having to really try, talented in this area above all others. The second was that to be truly exceptional at it, he had to devote a certain amount of compulsion and a certain amount of time to improving himself, and it kept him focused, kept his mind exercised. The third, and perhaps most important, was that it was an art that required intense focus and attention to minute detail, and it was perfect for whatever his neuroses were.

Lucius had never been very good in the class, at the art. He simply didn't have the patience for it.

There were a good many things Lucius Malfoy had the potential for, and most all of them were never fully realized. Severus had grown used to it, and no longer let it get him agitated, or anxious.

"But you _have_ to go, Severus." It became suddenly apparent that Lucius was talking, trying to be heard over Severus's studies, and failing miserably. The tone of the blond boy's voice was petulant, a low, refined whine hidden in it. Severus heaved a deep sigh, and turned the page in his book, not gracing Lucius even with a look over the edge of it. The smaller boy scowled, crossing his arms over his chest. "Well, you're _expected_, anyway," he added, pointedly. Severus let his shoulders rise and fall with a shrug.

"I'm working."

"Well, yes, I can see that, you always are, you know." Lucius lifted himself up to perch gracefully on the edge of Severus's desk, casting shadows over the pages before him, so he needed to squint to see.

"Do you mind?"

"Mm?"

"My light," Severus illustrated, and Lucius shifted, moving instead to peer over Severus's shoulder.

"I really don't understand you," Lucius murmured at last, after skimming a few lines and deciding he was absolutely one-hundred percent not interested.

"Some things are better left misunderstood," Severus returned cryptically. Lucius made a face, draping his arms over Severus's shoulders and resting his cheek up against his neck, letting dark hair tickle the side of his face.

"You just don't understand what an honor it is to be invited, that's all." Lucius toyed with Severus's hair absently, threading graceful fingers through the black strands. "Or maybe you do understand," he added thoughtfully, nuzzling in against his cheek, "but you just don't really care. After all, you're not stupid."

"No," Severus muttered half-heartedly, "I just put up with stupid people."

"I'm wounded," Lucius drawled, then quickly shifted gears. "Come with me tonight."

"I told you. I'm busy."

"But that isn't important." Lucius ran his fingertips up over Severus's scalp, mussing his hair carelessly, then focusing on the task of smoothing it out, ruffling the other boy both mentally and physically. Lucius always, always got what he wanted, no matter what it was, or how hard it was, to get it. Now that was dedication and perseverance that even Severus did not have. "What is important, is coming, tonight. You're expected. You don't go often enough that soon, he'll lose interest in you, and once he does -- well, you've lost your chances for good."

"Why don't you understand that it doesn't matter to me?" Lucius looked oddly blank at that statement, as if he'd heard it but it hadn't registered. The blond always was good at not hearing what he didn't want to. 

"You're coming," Lucius went on after a moment, his lips curving up into a smile Severus always found he couldn't resist, "and you know you are, so what's the point of this, mm?"

A few minutes later they were both cloaked against the winter wind and snow and striding through the winding halls and down the shifting staircases, Lucius moving with smug regality, and Severus trundling along behind him. Lucius was so very convincing, Severus thought to himself, because he was so very spoiled, and so very stubborn about it. No doubt he was the way he was because people kept deciding it would simply be easier to let him have what he wanted than to argue with him for hours on end. At least Severus wasn't fooling himself. At least he saw what he was perpetuating.

It was so silly, Severus had decided since the secret meetings began, silly because it was some sort of fan club, silly because it was so pointless, silly because it had the overwhelming potential to be incredibly dangerous and yet it still wasn't. He disliked being so ineffectual, and though he knew their Lord Voldemort -- no, Lucius's Lord Voldemort, the others' Lord Voldemort, not his Lord Voldemort -- was no doubt biding his time, waiting until he could use the youth whose hearts and minds he had swayed. For the time being, though, Severus found it absolutely pointless, to sit in darkness and bathe in shadow and listen to a man talk of a future that fooled all the other, less intelligent lackeys he had managed to amass.

They were called the Death Eaters. Whoever had thought up that title did a good job of making it sound intimidating, Severus would give them that, and once things were assigned to the group which required skill and careful thought, then, perhaps, the name would not seem so childish and almost comical. For the time being, Severus simply tried to ignore it, and would only half-listen to the chilling man who spoke in soft tones to the assorted group of youth. He'd otherwise occupy himself with thinking up new ingredients for sub-par potions, or mentally check down just what he needed to do the next day. If the meeting ran long, Severus would go through all the tasks that lay ahead for the next week.

All in all, Severus was not pleased to be going, but it was something he could easily live through, and so he said nothing, lost in thought as he followed Lucius down one hall, up another, down the next.

Of course, nothing could ever be easy. 

"Malfoy." The unpleasantly familiar voice startled him out of his thoughts and he lifted his head slightly to find that Lucius had stopped a few steps before him, his body tensed and angry. The reason why was easy to guess: Sirius Black stood directly in front of him, Remus Lupin by his side, as Remus Lupin was always by his side, these days. Severus stood still for a moment or so, and then simply took a step backwards. He had learned to let the two volatile boys fight their own battles. It was best to keep out of it entirely.

"Black." Lucius's voice was imperial and cutting, while Sirius's had been more of a thrown dagger, a challenge.

"Looks like you're in my way," Sirius said casually, arms folded loosely over his chest, the tension in his body made of sheer readiness for confrontation.

"I was just about to say the same thing to you," Lucius returned easily, falling into the same stance. 

_As if the evening couldn't get any more ridiculous_, Severus thought to himself, but he knew better than to voice such opinions.

"Get out of my way," Sirius said, and his eyes glittered, dark and dangerous.

"Make me," Lucius shot back, raising himself up to his full height. Sirius snorted softly, and took a step forward, too close to the other boy for any sort of comfort.

"Come now, Lucius," he growled, his voice low and richer than it usually was, "do you really want that? I'd hate to have to beat your sorry arse twice in one week."

"That's it," Lucius hissed, a snake moving for a dog suddenly, swiftly. They never came in contact, though, as on some unspoken cue, Severus and Remus moved forward hurriedly and grasped their respective friends, pulling them back and away, though they both struggled against the restraining arms near enough to shake free.

"Calm down," Remus muttered reproachfully in Sirius's ear. Sirius scowled, but relaxed, stilling himself before he fell back against Remus - something that no doubt would have knocked him down.

"Don't be a fool," Severus found himself warning Lucius as the both of them stumbled backwards, and Lucius snorted softly, shaking free of the other boy's arms. "We'll be late, and you were the one who wanted to go, in the first place."

"Next time, Black," Lucius snapped, tossing his hair back, almost like a stallion would, purely for show, "I'll get you." His lips twitched into a smirk. "And your little dog, too," he added.

"Oh, that is it," Sirius spat out, and, breaking free of Remus's hold, threw himself at Lucius, barreling into him. Severus nearly fell backwards as Lucius was knocked out of his arms, and he and Remus were able to only stare as Sirius shoved Lucius up against a wall, and the fight began. It was quite obvious that Sirius was the stronger of the two, but anger made him careless, as it always did, so half the wild, powerful punches he threw were easily ducked. Lucius could keep his cool for a while, but as one fist caught him squarely on the cheekbone, knocking his head back against the wall, he let out a cry of anger and lashed out with a booted foot at Sirius's shins. 

Sirius stumbled, and grabbed out at Lucius's cloak, dragging the other boy down as he fell. 

"We should do something," Remus thought aloud, taking a step forward, then nearly tripping as Lucius kicked out, trying to knock Sirius from him, and hitting against Remus's ankle instead. Remus hadn't even noticed that he'd spoken until Severus answered him.

"But what?" There was the sound of something, bone, cracking as knuckles came in contact with it, and a sound after that which signaled the ripping of clothes. Remus lifted his eyes to Severus's darker ones, and Severus nodded. "Before they kill each other, anyway," he murmured, and they both dove into the fray, with the sole objective of splitting it up. Remus grasped a handful of blond hair and winced, ducking a clawing hand that was quite obviously not Sirius's, before he managed to get his arms around Sirius's waist, and haul him up and away. Severus was clear then to grasp both of Lucius's wrists, dragging him to his feet, a good ways away from where Sirius and Remus stood. 

"We should just leave," Remus murmured helplessly, his arms tight around Sirius's waist.

"The bloody little twit thinks he can insult anyone he wants to, you or me, and get away with it--"

"Sirius," Remus half-soothed, half-scolded, "your lip is bleeding. We'll get it fixed up, back--"

"And someone has to stop him," Sirius muttered, and then added, "Iesu, mae o'n rel coc oen." He spat the Welsh out in Lucius's direction, wiping the blood from his lip with the back of his hand. Not even Remus knew what he had said, but it wasn't the time for asking.

"This isn't the end of this, Black," Lucius returned, still struggling against Severus's hold. His cheekbone was beginning to turn a deep shade of bluish purple, and, once you saw Sirius's swollen knuckles, it was obvious to tell why.

"Hardly, Malfoy." Sirius's eyes flashed with the promise, before he allowed Remus to guide him away, not once giving Lucius the satisfaction of looking back over his shoulder.

"Come on," Severus said, brushing dust off of Lucius's robes, lifting a hand to his bruised cheek. "We should take a look at this--"

"No," Lucius bit back, shaking his head vehemently, "we're going as planned. No common idiot like Black is going to keep us from our plans." He turned on his heel, motioned once for Severus to follow him, and was gone down the long hallway, disappearing into the shadows.

"Coward," Sirius snarled to himself, "spoiled, _stupid_ coward, son of a bloody inbred bitch, no doubt--"

"Just be quiet," Remus murmured, "or you'll split that lip more than it already is."

"As if I care," Sirius snapped back at him, and then he softened, shrugging weakly. "He insulted you," he explain, the anger seeming to flood from his gentler voice, "what else was I supposed to do?" He dabbed lightly at the cut on his lip with his finger, wincing, and then shook the wince off.

"You could have left it alone." Remus stopped, tugging lightly at the sleeve of Sirius's robe, and lifted his thumb to brush at the blood pooled at the corner of Sirius's mouth. "You didn't have to get hurt."

"He's hurt more'n I am," Sirius said with a grin, trying not to seem as if he regretted it, the second the cut on his lip was tugged wider. "Besides, how'm I supposed to let him have the last word?"

"It's been done before," Remus pointed out, voice dry. "It is possible. you're going to have a black eye, you know."

"So that's why my head is pounding," Sirius murmured, and his eyes grinned, though he kept his mouth still as possible. "In any case, it was all for your honor, so it's worth it. At least, I think so." Something in those eyes saddened, and they pulled away, as Sirius began to walk again. It occurred to Remus then that all Sirius wanted was some form of a thank you, and he sighed softly, mentally kicking himself for not seeing this, sooner. Though he knew Sirius as well as he knew anyone, and better, it was still going to be a long time before he truly understood the way his mind, and his emotions, worked, both separately, and alone.

Just because it had been foolish -- and it most certainly had, and Sirius knew that ( for he wasn't an idiot, even if he tended to act like one ) -- didn't mean it hadn't been well-meant. Not towards Lucius, of course, but some sort of clumsy gift from Sirius to Remus, as most of Sirius's gifts were.

Remus hurried to catch up with the other boy, and found his hand, and took it, twining Sirius's fingers with his own as he fell into pace at Sirius's side. "Thank you, Sirius," he said, very softly, so that Sirius had to strain to hear it. And then, once he did, it was very hard to keep from breaking into another wide, and therefore painful, grin. Remus had that strange effect on him.

"Don't thank me," he mumbled softly, ducking his head down, "just see if you can get some ice, because you're right, as always. And I'm going to need it."  
  


Mundungus Fletcher was hot, down to his bones and sticky in his skin hot. Even his hotel room -- Muggle, of course; it was more discreet, strangely enough -- seemed to have given up fighting the heat with air conditioning, and simply resigned itself to the oppressive and all powerful weather. The bedsheets had been cool when first Mundungus lay down upon them, but they were not so any longer. Luckily, Mundungus had always been near-impervious to such elevated temperature, and while he was very, very hot, now, he knew that most any one else sent to stay in this place would have been rendered immobile, or at least abjectly miserable.

Hector would have hated it most, Mundungus found himself thinking, but Arabella, would have complained the loudest and the most.

Though it pained Mundungus to remember, he did not once harbor the impulse to forget. To ban those times from his thoughts and his heart would have been to deny all that he was.  
  
_ There is no future," Hector murmured over a cup of tea, "without a past."_

All that matters is the present," Arabella corrected, serving Mundungus another scone as if it were second nature, "and what you know, and what you make of it."

Mundungus smiled.

Still, you could not dwell in a land of what was, certainly not on a lazy hot day when there were things to be done, out there in a world of shimmery heat. Swinging himself out of bed, Mundungus was pleased to find that the wood floor was cool, for a moment or two, against the soles of his bare feet. He was less pleased when he looked outside the window and saw the rooftops wavering with the humidity of the air, as if the entire world was being seen from behind a bonfire. Mundungus groaned and ran his fingers through his sandy hair, and had to convince himself he had better things to do than hang about naked in his hotel room all day, trying to suck up the meager relief offered by malfunctioning central air.

It was tempting, to stay indoors, but there were letters to answer and myths to research, and a sphinx to gather information on. The sooner the task was over, the sooner he could return to lovely, rainy, _cold _England. Where, his mind added nastily, Albus will give you your next miserable assignment. But he kicked that thought aside quickly, and told himself to be far more grateful than he was already being. It was more trouble than not, being well-liked by Albus Dumbledore, but it was almost impossible to find courage or true reason ever to complain. With a great, good-natured sigh, Mundungus leaned one shoulder and part of his side against the windowpane, enjoying the momentary chill of the glass.

_ Egypt really is hot,_ he'd written in his last letter to Arabella, _really damn hot. They're not lying when they tell you it is._

Her unopened reply to his latest post was sitting neatly on the bedside table, and it seemed as if he would have to read it before he could actually begin his day. He shook his head fondly and pushed off the windowpane, falling back against the bed once more and snatching up the letter at the same time, all in one fluid motion. The seal was easily broken and the handwriting was comfortably familiar, though it made the ring that hung on a chain around Mundungus's neck feel heavier, just at the sight.

_ Dearest M,_

I've gone to Wales.   
Before you ask me why in the name of all that is and isn't holy why I've gone to Wales, stop for a moment, and think; no matter how hard it may be for you to do so.  
Mundungus, I can't let him run away as he did. It's been a long time, long enough for him to think he's forgotten us, and I refuse to let him, the bastard. We need him; Albus needs him; and he needs to be with us. He always has, but you know how he is -- so easily scared by so little. And I think, something did scare him, back then. So, I've gone to Wales, because that's where he is. I've gone to Wales to find out what it is that sent him running.   
I'm sure you're near to killing me at this point, and probably, so long as we're at this point, I probably deserve it. It may be that I should have told you before I went off, but as you're in Egypt, and I am not, that's rather impossible.  
I'll be speaking with him tomorrow.  
I'll tell him you love him.

Love A

Mundungus was cold, down to his bones and clammy in his skin cold, and his hands were shaking, so that the single sheet of parchment fluttered by his fingers. 

_ She wouldn't,_ had been his first, gut response; and then his deep understanding of Arabella had kicked in, and he had corrected himself, _but of course she would. She's Arabella._ Hurriedly, he flipped the letter over to check when it had been postmarked. 

A few days ago.

"Bloody Muggle post," Mundungus hissed under his breath. There was no time to intercept her, no time to keep her from going to--

--and potentially ruining his entire life--

--just because Arabella worked on intelligent impulse, so strong and so intense and so spirited that she could never become any more than what it was she was, with all her stubbornness added into the mix.

It took Mundungus a while before he could calm enough to write a letter in reply, knowing that whenever Arabella got it, it would be far too late already. If Hector had run away, Mundungus knew -- because Hector had always understood him so well, and he, Hector -- then he had run away for a reason, and to try to badger him into returning would be to slam up against a fragile soul surrounded by fragile bone. And just thinking about Hector made Mundungus ache in his chest, his throat going all wide, and dry.

_ Stupidest A,_

What in Merlin's name are you thinking?  
Oh, that's right, nothing at all. How very like me that is, Bella.   
You know how I'd have felt about this if you told me sooner.   
I can't believe you've gone to him.  
If you hurt him, I don't care who you are to me.   
But you already knew that.

No love, M

On the page, it seemed like some sort of warped poem. Mundungus didn't laugh to see it.

_ "Hector? Anything wrong?" There was the sound of something rustling -- hair against hair against cheeks; Hector was shaking his head._

"Nothing."

"Have a little something to drink."

"I'd rather not." The feel of Hector's cheek against his fingertips, the feel of his hair through his fingers, just the slight glimpse of those worried eyes.

"Something's wrong, isn't it."

"Nothing's wrong. Really." The tension of the air as that smile was forced to those lips. "Just-been a busy day, that's all. Hasn't it? Been a busy day. I should turn in, I'm tired."

"See something in the tea leaves again?"

Silence.

"Maybe it'll help to talk about it."

"It wasn't the tea leaves. I can't even look at the stars, Mundungus! Not even the stars, because I see things, I feel things, and it's better not to know! I just want to look at the stars, and see the stars, and nothing more, nothing else."

"It's better to prepare, to know how to prepare..."

"You bloody see things like I see all the time, and then you tell me that, and mean it, and I'll listen."

Silence. 

"I'm going to bed, all right? It'll be better, in the morning. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." And then the feel of Hector's shoulders against his arms, of Hector against his broader chest, though Hector was by no means a frailly built man. Sometimes he just had to hold Hector to make sure he was really real, that he was really there, and with him, with everyone else, on earth. Sometimes, it was impossible to tell just by looking at him or talking to him, and Mundungus simply had to touch, because he desperately needed to be reassured. Sometimes, Hector was so much and so little all at once. 

"You don't have to apologize to me, Hector."

"I snapped at you. I shouldn't have."

"But you're right. I don't know anything about it, so why am I trying to pretend I do?"

"Because you want to make things better." The feel of Hector trembling against him.

"Maybe you should just, go to bed. I can't make things better." All I want is to be reassured, myself.

"I'm all right."

"I know." 

"I'll be all right."

"I know."

"Good night, Mundungus."

"Good night, Hector. Sleep well." And the unspoken knowledge, that Mundungus would join him later, and nothing would come of it, and he'd be gone again in the morning. Sometimes, it was nice just to lie by Hector's side and know that he would not disappear during the night; that Mundungus himself would be the one with the power to leave. Sometimes, it was painful, having a friend so ethereal, with his eyes always elsewhere, however hard they tried to be fix onto something solid, of the earth. But it was harder, for Hector, and so Mundungus simply took what he could, selfishly, and missed all possible opportunities.

Mundungus sent the letter out by Owl Post later in the hot day, as it was quicker that way, and he didn't know where Arabella was, at that. And for the duration of his stay in Egypt, or at least the part where he waited for Arabella to reply to his letter, he tried desperately not to think, at all, on what had happened to tear them apart.

The house was very small, and very quiet, now that Damon had left. Damon would be coming back, or so he had said, and soon, but whatever soon happened to be, it wasn't soon enough. Leaving him alone in this place he did not know to these feelings he could not bear, was far too much for Hector to breathe through.

And so he sat, alone, in the empty, cold kitchen, drawing on the things Arabella had said, before he and Damon had chased her out, and Damon had told him, with numb, hollow tones, that he needed some time alone, to think.

_ "We married. Mundungus and I. We were married, for all of five hours, before we realized that we both loved you, and it was the bloody stupidest idea any two people could possibly harbor, and we got it annulled." Hector noticed the ring that hung around her neck, and he felt his stomach sink past his feet and through the floor, all the way to the other side of the world. He wanted to throw up._

"Why are you doing this to me, Arabella?"

"Because you deserve it, you son of a bitch."

And maybe he _was_ weak.  
  
All his life, Mundungus had tried to shelter him, to protect him from the harsh realities of the world and life itself, and Hector had needed him for that. In losing Mundungus he had lost the shell, and now, Arabella's words echoed in his head and through his heart, and crashed against his brittle bone, and broke him. 

_ "Leave."_

"I'm not leaving until you listen to me."

"And haven't you said enough?" His voice was wild, even in his own ears. "I want you out of my house, I want you out of my life, I want you to get out of my heart and my head, I want you out!"

"You're weak, Hector. And I thought it meant you felt more than others, but it just meant you were weak. And Mundungus thought, and still thinks, the bloody fool, that it meant we were here to protect you, and keep you safe, and that was what loving was, but it wasn't, and he sits and looks for women to protect when he should be looking for you again. Merlin knows why, but you put your hold on us and then you ran away, you fucking coward, you ran away and left us to fend for ourselves, without you. Son of a bitch. How dare you do that to us. To me. How dare you."

"Get out."

"If only it were that simple! But I can't get out, just as you couldn't get out, and it isn't fair to think we can forget you so easily!" Arabella had the wildest eyes. They burned and they ached and they pierced, they needed and they hated and they accused, and they wailed, like a siren lost at sea, hungry, hungry. "You listen to me, Hector Karnaugh, and you actually listen: when you left, you took pieces of us, and I damn well demand that they be returned. Perhaps you can't, now, but I'm hear to make sure that you return them one day, and if you don't, I'll hunt you down as the dog that you are, and I'll kill you to take it back if need be. Don't think that I won't."

Her eyes meant it.

Next to him, Damon was terrified.

And he was terrified, looking into those eyes, and hurting so deeply, so badly, that he wanted to scream.

Now, it was hard not to watch the stars, so clear on these crisp, winter evenings. The stars that haunted him so, that taunted and mocked and twinkled, brightly, beautifully, and ominously above. Hector had always been aware only of the dark spaces between each, and how vast a map they painted, and how small and insignificant he was. All he wanted, was to simply be able to lie back against the ground one summer day, and simply watch the stars, simply see them, not some grand, futuristic gesture, painful and portentous. 

The stars said, or rather made him say to himself: I am alone.

And truly, he was just that, with only Arabella's words echoing in his head, and in the empty spaces all throughout each small room, between furniture and photographs and flowerpots.

_ "I like gardening," Hector told Damon softly, smiling. "It's so-- solid. You can feel it. There's nothing missing, nothing to puzzle together. Just dirt and seeds and the sunlight, and water, but everything needs that, really, so I'm not sure if it quite counts."_

The tea was getting cold, he noted. Frigid, actually, but it was hard to discern between 'cold' and 'freezing' through the chill that flooded the tip of Hector's nose, and all through his fingertips. It was hard to discern when one truly didn't care to.

Later, when there was a knock on the door, he realized that he should get up, should answer it, but he wasn't sure if it was locked or not, or if it mattered who came to him, or who didn't. He heard the door open, and close -- so it wasn't locked, obviously -- and he settled himself lower in the wooden chair, staring fixedly at the wall before him.

Damon was gone, and the house was very, very cold, and even more empty.

He didn't know what to do with himself, now. He didn't think he could bear to make pancakes alone. He didn't think he could live this way or die this way, or do anything else but sit there and hold a cup of tea and mourn what he'd lost, and how careless he had been with it, when he'd had it.

_ "I know," Damon whispered, pained, "I know that it would have been - well, I mean, I don't think I could have believed it, but here it is, and-- I just need, I just need some time, a little time, to think about things. About everything."_

"Oh," Hector said.

"And I'll come back," Damon went on helplessly, "of course, I'll come back, I just need to be alone for a bit, and sort this out, what to make of it, I have to know-- what to make of it, after all. Because it just, it doesn't make sense, and I-- I'm sorry. I wish you'd told me. I don't know what to think yet."

"Right," Hector said. 

He felt -- if he felt anything at all -- very small, and very childish, and utterly incompetent. But here he would sit, and here he would wait, until Damon came back.

_ If_ Damon came back.

Of course he'd come back, he had said he'd come back.

"I'm going to have to kill her," said the voice behind Hector's back, "I'm going to have to, I told her I would if she hurt you, and she obviously did. Bitch. I will, you know; or, I would, if I thought it wouldn't hurt you further. She's still an incorrigible cunt, and she's going to be punished for this." When Mundungus was nervous he always ended up talking, filling uncomfortable or awkward silence with the sound of his voice, which was sometimes so cheerful, sometimes so somber, but always so deeply pleasing to listen to.

"Have you come to hate me, too?" Hector asked at last. He didn't turn around. He didn't think he could bear what he might see, over his shoulder.

"No. I'd stay away for that."

"She does, you know. Hate me. Bella. I didn't mean it. I didn't want it. I just wanted her to leave, in the end, and it shouldn't be that way."

"No. It shouldn't. If I had known, I would have kept her from coming."

"Yes."

"I missed you, Hector. Merlin, I missed you." And he had said it, easy as that, admitting freely that there had been an absence, that Hector had left them both, that there had been something to miss. It hurt, but he felt lighter. And then he saw Hector's shoulders shake.

He hadn't seen this man -- this boy, really, in so many ways -- for years upon years, decades, now. It hit him at last, along with the miserable picture Hector made alone in that chair, and Mundungus felt as if someone had sucker-punched him directly in the stomach. 

"Oh, fuck," Mundungus said, and Hector began to cry. It was one thing to see a young man, a boy really, weep that way, as Hector had used to, but to see a full grown man break into tears, as Hector just had done, was shattering to any spirit, no matter how strong. Mundungus moved forward, quickly, and pulled Hector easily up and out of his chair, holding him close, trying to hold him above whatever it was he was drowning in.

_ Good,_ he thought helplessly, as he did so, _we stillfit._

But it seemed as if that fact of life might never have cause to change.

"I'm so sorry," Hector whispered, between shuddering tears, "I'm so sorry, I never meant to hurt either of you, I just couldn't see-- anymore, I couldn't see what I had to-- it was better, to find someone else, who could protect you, who could do-do something."

"Don't think we ever could have replaced you," Mundungus soothed, brushing his fingers through Hector's hair.

"I couldn't say goodbye," Hector went on, "how could I say goodbye? I didn't want things to end."

"No one ever does."

"And she hates me, now, and I thought maybe she'd understand--"

"I understand, Hector. I'm here. It's all right. It's going to be all right." Just petting his hair, because it was comforting and familiar to them both, little patting motions with his broad, callused palm.

"I'm alone, Mundungus. I'm alone. I'm going to be alone. I'm _alone_--"

"Shh. You're hardly alone. I'm here, remember? And I'll stay." There was something unnecessary accusatory in his voice when he said that, and he winced. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way. I will. I won't try to make you do anything. Bella -- Bella was just hurt, more than anyone really, when she realized you were gone. She never let it show, which is why she was so angry. You know Bella."

"I know Bella. I know she means what she says."

"We've all changed, Hector. Bella has changed. We've been apart for a very long time. You've gotten so damned thin, I'd've hardly recognized you, you know, if it wasn't for" If it wasn't for the fact that he'd know Hector no matter what he looked like and where he was, no matter what time had grown gaping gaps between the two of them. "You still feel the same, anyway," Mundungus muttered, frowning to himself. "We should probably sit down, shouldn't we? And talk. I passed by the sitting room on my way in here. Let's go, Hector. Let's-- let's talk."

"If you promise not to hate me," Hector whispered, pulling back for a moment. At last, he got a long, good look at Mundungus's face. In all the years they had been apart it hadn't changed, still cut jaggedly, youthfully, with high cheekbones and an aquiline nose, and sparkling eyes set beneath a proud brow. He still looked young, though there was something coarser and wiser about those features, or at least hidden within them. All Hector's memories of Mundungus were of him smiling, but his lips were set in a straight, worried line, now. And his hair was shorter, though it fell forward more messily over that broad forehead.

"I'm not going to hate you, Hector. I never did. I loved you too much for it."

"Then-- let's talk," Hector murmured at last, and, leaning on Mundungus's arm, led the way back, into the sitting room.

_ And Mundungus found his way into Hector's bed that night, despite the pained words he had spoken, despite the lingering ache in his heart at them, and he knew that no matter how hard Hector pushed things away, no matter how foolishly, he would still find his way back to his side, bonded as brothers. He would still find his way to wrapping an arm around Hector's waist and pressing his lips against his hair, and smelling the smell of him, the smell of home._

Leaving Hogwarts was always like leaving a nest, one of safety, of home, of love. Though it was nice to know there was a lazy summer before you it was equally not to know that it would be a lazy summer spent alone, without those grown accustomed and comfortable by your side during the long school year. This year, it was worse, for there were other factors to be weighed into the mix; one other thing, to be exact, and that was the cycle of the full moon, and to what the wolf, and Padfoot, as well as Prongs and Wormtail, had become so used.

"What is it about leaving," Sirius asked softly, packing the night before his Fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was to end, "about having to leave, that makes you feel so helpless?"

"It could have something to do with the black eye you're not going to be able to hide from your mother," Remus murmured softly, folding one shirt neatly, because there really were less wrinkles that way, than using magic to pack up. Sirius was waving his wand about wildly, and still managing only to stuff and mash the last sock in before he zipped his suitcase up.

"She's going to give me a matching one, when she sees it." Sirius frowned, and sat down atop his suitcase. Only then was he able to get the stuck zipper pulled shut all the way.

"She's going to give you a matching one, when she sees the way you've packed up your things." Remus moved forward with a light sigh, shooing Sirius away and unpacking everything he'd shoved so unceremoniously in places they hardly belonged, so he could pack it again properly, himself. 

"You don't have to clean up after me, Moony," Sirius said with a playful scowl, sitting on the edge of his bed next to Remus, facing him, to watch.

"Someone has to." Remus expertly smoothed the wrinkles from a t shirt and tucked the arms in against the chest first, then folded it in half, and in half again, setting it down and running his fingers over the fabric as a final touch, just to be sure. "Because if you went home with your suitcase like that, your socks all rolled up into knots and your shirts in a crumpled up heap, your mother would kill you, and then were would I be?" Graceful fingers moved over a pair of socks, twisting them and rolling them into a neat, wrinkle-free ball. 

"Oh, great; nice to know it's for my own good, anyway. Or maybe, just for your own good." Sirius ran his fingers through his hair, and then delicately touched the sensitive flesh around his eye, wincing as he learned the bruise was still very tender. "Least I know I almost broke his nose, and knocked out a tooth. A tooth, Moony, I'm getting pretty, bloody good, don't you think?"

"Yes. It's terribly appealing, to see you flailing about, smashing your fists into people and whooping like an aborigine when the blood flies." Remus sounded comically matronly; his voice, added to the image he made as he was balling socks, made Sirius laugh out loud. 

"In any case, if Malfoy thinks he can sic Crabbe and Goyle on me and get away with it, he's one Sickle short of a Galleon, that's for sure." Remus lips quirked upwards, just slightly, and he ducked his head over his task to hide the smile he couldn't quite keep from his face. "Look at that! Even you're smiling, and you know it's true, 'cause I can take all three of 'em in one fight if I want to, spoiled brat and his oversized lugs and even that greasy git Snape, as well, if he ever got up the courage to fight." It was best to let Sirius go on like this -- it distracted him, no doubt, from whatever loneliness or dread that he was experiencing at the idea of leaving Hogwarts the next morning. It was distracting to Remus, as well, just listening to Sirius ramble for a while, talking about nothing, bragging about everything, and filling Remus's ears with the familiar, glorious sound. 

"All four of them, hm?"

"And, you've seen me do it," Sirius said, indignant, "more'n once, I'll add, so at least I'm good for something, even if I can't fold my own socks." Remus set down the last pair and couldn't help but smile at that, eyes meeting with Sirius's, and catching. "Oi, Remus," Sirius said after a few moments of that heated silence, "I'm going to miss you so damn much Merlin only knows what I'm going to do." Almost unconsciously, Remus lifted his hand, brushing his fingers through Sirius's hair and pushing a few unruly strands off his forehead, out of his eyes, to rest, tucked behind his ear. Sirius swallowed, and a pained, unhappy expression crossed his face, and Remus abandoned the half-finished task of packing to move forward, and cradle Sirius's head against his chest, in his arms.

"If only I were good with words," Remus said softly, "I'd write you enough letters that you wouldn't miss me for a minute."

"I'd miss you anyway," Sirius returned, voice muffled against Remus's flannel pajama top, "because they'd just be letters. They wouldn't be you. I hate the summer, Moony, I hate being alone."

"You're not alone," Remus soothed, stroking Sirius's hair. "You have your entire family there with you, I know how it is. How can you possibly be alone when they're there for you?"

"Trust me." Sirius's voice was low, lost, grave. "I'm alone there, because it isn't enough, and they're alone, because they know it."

"I'm sorry," Remus said, "I am." Sirius shook his head as best he could in the awkward position, and slipped his arms around Remus's waist, holding tight. For a long time, he'd realized that all other emotions were petty and unimportant, in comparison with this, its warmth and its irrational, beautiful fire. So his mother would laugh with him, and he would fight a little with Cassie just like old times, and Michael and he would go down to the river and maybe skip stones if the weather was right and they found any stones good for skipping. And once, once he would have jumped for joy at the idea of it all, would have known that this was life, blissful and simple and summer-warm and perfect. Once, he had been younger, and he had not known the boy with eyes the color of birch-and oak bark. Now, all that had been familiar was not, and all that had been pleasant and wholly good was not enough. 

Sirius needed things, needed most of all to look to one side of him and know he could see Remus walking there, lost in thought or lost in looking at Sirius the same way, but never again lost to his touch and to his sphere, his axis, of living.  
  
Sirius needed desperately to be able to hold the smaller boy when he felt suddenly unsure of what the world had to offer, or what it was he felt, or thought, about someone or something, or what it was he should do, or say, or become. Remus was his solid ground. Remus was his point of no return. Remus was his air and the world that nourished him and the world he nourished in return. Without the other boy beside him, everything was dull and unimportant, and he slipped into a land of lethargic discontent, waiting, waiting, to be returned to him.

"We both have to go home, after all," Remus said softly, toying with a stray lock of Sirius's hair.

"You don't get it, Moony," Sirius returned softly, fingers knotting at Remus's back. "This is home." And it was quite obvious that he didn't mean Hogwarts, or the bed, but the boy held in his arms, and the tight, comfortable feel of the world, when they were so close.

Sirius pulled back slowly, almost reluctant, and reached up to touch Remus's chin, to urge him down for a kiss. It got easier and easier for Remus, this knowing how to move your mouth and what to do with your tongue, the more he and Sirius spent time simply kissing. Barring the self conscious nature Remus indulged in, something that would pass once the awkwardness of youth passed, it got better each time, if that were possible.

"I should finish packing for you," Remus whispered against Sirius's lips, "or else we'll be late, tomorrow morning."

"But what if," Sirius replied, softly, tones somber, "what if tomorrow never comes, and we wasted all of tonight?" Whatever the bigger boy meant by that was left to the imagination as he kissed Remus again, gently, searching his mouth. Tongue ran over teeth and toyed with tongue, teasing, tugging. Sirius was without a doubt one of the best kissers the world had ever seen, and would ever see again, and Remus wasn't one to protest it, at least not for the sake of folding dirty clothing.

They fell back against the bed and they broke off the kiss at last, breathing in deeply, curled in around each other. 

"We'll be home again soon enough," Remus managed to say, shivering. Sirius ran his fingers up and down his side, pushing at the warm fabric of Remus's pajama top, motions that seemed almost absentminded, but were entirely purposeful.   
  
"But I don't like having to leave," Sirius said, and sighed. "That's the point of all of this."

"Someday, you're going to have to learn a little patience, Sirius," Remus retorted dryly, "and I don't know what it's going to be that teaches you, but Merlin knows you need it."

There was a long, echoing silence, cavernous throughout the room, between curtain and curtain, curtain and curtain, of Remus's canopy bed. Here was a place where their scents mingled on the sheets, and filled Remus's senses with secret, thrilled bliss. Here was a place that echoed sheets wrinkled by both their bodies in Sirius's mind and on his skin, and he loved to lounge there, luxuriant, lazy, loved. 

Or, as he'd like to think he was. Remus wouldn't be this way with him, if he didn't feel something more for him than he could ever feel for anyone else. At least, Sirius hoped his theory was right; but thinking along those lines always made him sick to his stomach, and he banned such wondering thoughts from his mind.

"I don't need any bloody patience, Moony," Sirius mumbled back, his hand falling still, resting against the curve of Remus's hip, "I don't need any bloody patience because I have you." He nuzzled against the side of Remus's face, and pressed a kiss to the tip of his nose, and flashed a light, weak grin. "Or at least, I'm crazy enough to delude myself into thinking I do; but either way, I'm rather happy, so don't tell me the truth, just yet. I'd like to be happy for just a little while longer." 

Remus said nothing, but his eyes promised everything.

Later that night, Remus taught Sirius as best he could how to fold clothes properly, and they finished packing, and fell asleep tangled limb with limb as the cool air filtered over their warm skin, and they wondered just what it was they could possibly be feeling.

And when they boarded the train the next day, with the bright sunlight washing over them, they sat together as close as they could, and held each other's hands tight, and spent the aching, too-short minutes in silence, until it was time to leave what they felt and knew was 'home' for what was actually called by that name.

"I'll see you, Moony," Sirius said. 

"The time will pass," Remus replied. 

Sirius lifted a hand and brushed gold-flecked bangs back from Remus's eyes, affectionate, tender. Sirius had rough palms, Quidditch callused, but they could be so soft when he wished them to be. Then, he turned round, picked up his suitcase, and disappeared into the crowd, leaving Remus alone to face the busy thrum of a grayscale world.

Sometimes, with instincts like Sirius's, you could tell when people thought differently about you, simply by the way they looked at you. Especially if they'd been looking at you the same way for all your life, and suddenly, it was changing, or had changed, and you were just beginning to notice it. 

Michael had this steel to his eyes as of late, nothing soft and fond left save for the slightest hint of it every now and then, when Aquila was in the room. Sean and Sirius had never been close, and so it was harder for Sirius to tell what he was imagining in those familiar eyes, and what was really there, and harder still to put a name or a reason to what it was, once he'd decided. But Michael's eyes made him uncomfortable, as if they wished to pin him down and strip him of everything he was -- no, of everything he'd become. The looks were always given when Michael thought Sirius's back was turned, when Michael thought Sirius wouldn't notice it or feel it, but how couldn't he? Piercing and detached, the looks cut into your skin and pried open your soul, and Sirius felt for the first time the aching need to close himself off to someone.

And it wasn't just any someone. It was _Michael,_ for Merlin's sake, _Michael,_ who taught Sirius how to skip stones and how to climb a tree and how to swear like any of the men at the local pub. _Michael,_ who was everything Sirius had ever wanted to become, strong and capable, loud and proud of it, a joke a minute and a steady hand, whenever you needed one.

But something between them had changed, and Sirius hoped it wasn't but knew it was the one thing in the world he himself could not, would not, let go, not even for Michael's sake.

It was clear that there would be no more visits, just the two of them, to the river, for those times were over. There would be no more trips down into the mine after lunch breaks, where Aquila would protest and Michael would sneak him in anyway, and they'd both of them come home covered in the black soot and catch hell for it. They'd go to bed with no supper and soundly boxed ears, but it would be worth it, just to have the memories, Sirius feeling older and wiser, and Michael feeling young once more.

And there wasn't any lack of love, exactly, just a lack of unity, the fraying of that rope-tight bond they'd shared once, when they hadn't just been brothers in blood but in spirit, as well. Sirius missed the way it had been; he'd admit that quite freely. But he knew also there was simply nothing to be done about it, not with those looks Michael gave him, not with the tension in the air, whenever they were left alone.

It was partly because of 62 The Glen -- for Michael saw as much as he didn't tell, and always told very, very little -- and partly because of Remus, and the first puzzled Sirius, or at least he tried to convince himself it did. The third wounded him more deeply than he could express and he spent some nights awake when most often he would sleep like a rock, wondering and agitated and hurting. Michael had been in love once or twice, so he said, with a round-hipped, dimple-cheeked miner's daughter, but obviously it had been something other than love or he would have understood. _He should understand,_ Sirius told himself, time after time, whenever that piercing ache began in his gut, _he should. He _should.

But the simple fact was, he didn't, and whenever Michael's eyes came to fall on Sirius they found some new way of expressing disappointment, misunderstanding, and even the faintest hint of disgust, which was the worst of it all. Sirius wanted to ask, _why are you looking at me this way?_ But he knew why, or had enough information to know why, and to ask would be to bring it out in the open. For now, all Sirius wanted to do was hide. 

It was one of the only things he'd ever found in all his life that he could not bring himself to bully and bluster and confront. 

After all, what would he possibly have to say? Michael was stubborn, stubborn as all the Black men were, and you couldn't convince anyone out of something they felt, something they felt that was strong enough to erase more than fifteen years of brotherhood and love. _Guess some of Moony's brains are rubbing off on me, _Sirius told himself as he thought this over for the umpteenth time. He could barely bring himself to even laugh at the image, once it had formed in his mind, and simply rolled over, pulling his blanket up over his head, trying not to think at all.

Naturally, it was worth it. It was worth losing Michael and Sean, even Orion and Aquila -- though he never for a moment thought he'd lose them, certainly not over whom he _loved._ It was worth losing everyone and everything, just to keep Remus, and though he'd be miserable with it, should it come to such deep and overwhelming loss, he knew that he'd bear it. Somehow. 

Such thoughts, such feelings, absolutely terrified him.

But the way Michael kept looking at him kept causing him to confront them, when all he was, was very young, and very in love, and very, very scared of knowing it so well.

So Sirius spent the days with Cassie, oddly enough, who looked at him as though she knew and was envious, rather than as though she knew and she couldn't bear to think of the poor, pathetic, and even revolting fool he had chosen to become. It was the way Cassie looked at him -- a slight bit of admiring jealousy, a wistful touch to her deep blue eyes -- that made Sirius feel as if, at last, someone seemed to understand what it was to love, or at least wish they knew what it was, so that they could understand it. It was simply that, the onset of love in the face of anything, love that was love and nothing else. There were no other names. There was an l, and an o, and a v, and an e, and it framed what love was, which was something more and something without any words and something without any deep, accusatory looks. 

_ What have you become? I loved you, once._

What have I become? I fell in love. That love could not have been what betrayed your love. It simply was.

Cassie and Sirius spent time in the center of town, wishing they could spend money they did not have in the candy shop, and Cassie found that Sirius looked at chocolate in a way that suggested he wasn't the one who wanted to eat it. She found him fascinating, really, completely and utterly so, because no one else in her family acted this way, and she was jealous, but only because she wanted to know more.

On a day when Aquila found it impossibly pleasant that they no longer fought, squabbling together as foolish children might, she handed them her purse and told them they could go buy whatever they wanted, so long as they didn't take advantage, and hoped as they ran off pell-mell that she hadn't made a mistake.

"What are you going to buy?" Cassie asked, breathless, as she tried to keep up with Sirius, who had far longer legs than she did.

"I'm going to buy him some chocolates, to make sure he's eating even that," Sirius replied, and he let out a wild, echoing whoop of joy, that there was something at last that he could do. Cassie found herself growing curious again, but she didn't have time for it to take full effect while she pressed all her concentration into the task of running. At last, when they reached the candy shop, and Sirius picked out only the most expensive sweets while Cassie ordered one bar of hazelnut fudge, Cassie felt that wondering curiosity creep back. She was so caught up in thinking about it that she didn't even watch the man behind the counter wrap up their purchases and slip in a free jawbreaker for each of them to have on the slower, meandering walk back home. 

Outside, they sucked on their jawbreakers in silence, Cassie taking hers out of her mouth every so often to watch the colors change. Sirius kept his candy against the roof of his mouth, letting it melt. He was too old, now, he told himself, to keep popping it in and out, simply to see the purple give way the yellow give way to the blue.

"Sirius?" Cassie asked at last, licking sticky sugar from her fingers.

"Mn?" Sirius's voice was odd and muted by the slowly dwindling candy still large in his mouth.

"Tell me about him." Her eyes were bright, fixed ahead of her, and she waited, hoping he would. She knew Sirius wouldn't have to ask, 'tell me about who?' because it was quite obvious from the way he missed a casual step that she'd taken him off guard. And to take him off guard, you simply had to mention that name, whether in intent or in words: Remus.

"what about him d'you want to know, then?" Sirius asked finally, not looking over to his sister at his side.

"Whatever you want to tell me," Cassie replied firmly. Sirius paused again, and his brow furrowed.

"There's a lot to tell," he answered at last.

"We have the whole summer," Cassie said cheerfully. "Well?" She was going to win; she knew it. It seemed as if Sirius had been waiting for all of the time he'd been back to get an excuse to talk about him, and she could look on it as doing him a favor, giving him the chance. But she knew also that she simply had to know, a clutching longing grabbing hold of her stomach whenever she thought of it. 

"Well," Sirius said thoughtfully, and then he tugged the candy from his mouth, wrapping it back up to save for later, so he could talk easily and freely now. It was a good sign, Cassie thought, and she knew she could lead the way to the side of the river, or even the abandoned lighthouse, so she could sit and he could sit and she could listen all day to him talking about this. Why she was so curious, she didn't know. She simply had to find out what it was like, what all the fuss was about. Her damn lucky brother had fallen in love, and she would be the first to hear absolutely everything about it.

"Well?" Cassie prompted, sucking eagerly on the candy, which was growing steady smaller against her tongue.

"Well he's like this," Sirius murmured, then trailed off helplessly. "He's like-- you can't explain what he's like. He's quiet but he fills a room. He's small but when I look at him, he's all I can see. Naturally, he's smarter than I am, but that's not hard," and Sirius attempted a weak grin at that, getting painfully lonely just thinking about the boy, feeling the chocolates he'd bought for him swing by his side. "And he knows something about everything, why people do what they do or feel what they feel, and what needs to be done about it. I don't think he ever stands up for himself, because I don't think he understands how wonderful he is. And it hurts to know that when he smiles, you've got to coax it out of him, or when he laughs, you've got to treasure every second of it, because you might not hear it again for-- for years, even!"

"Oh," Cassie whispered, "oh," and she loved the little thrill she got just imagining him through Sirius's eyes, but Sirius didn't seem to hear her as he went on.

"I'm lost," Sirius said softly, "I'm lost without him, and I'm lost with him, and it's really just that simple." It seemed easy, casual, to say it, but it hurt a little, admitting how alone he was, and how afraid he was of being alone.

"Does it help to talk about him?" Cassie asked, softening. There was something deeply wounded in Sirius's eyes that might have been there before, simply going by unnoticed because no one expected to see it there. 

"I don't know yet," Sirius admitted, "but I hope it will." Something, out of all of this, had to help. There were two and a half months left during summer break, and if he didn't find something to soothe the ache, he might just go stark raving mad. 

"So keep talking," Cassie said after a minute or so had passed. Now, it wasn't just simple curiosity. Now, it was something else, something she didn't quite know or understand, but it had to do with truly wanting to hear about this boy that was so loved, this boy who was so complex and so wonderful when seen through Sirius's eyes. It had something to do with compassion, with truly wanting to help her brother, for his shoulders had begun to droop.

"D'you really want me to?" Sirius sounded unsure, wary.

"Would I let you bore me out of my mind?" Cassie returned, giving a half-hearted scowl. "Go on," she added, softer, tossing her hair back over one shoulder. "Please? I want to hear. Go on."

And so Sirius did.

He told her about Remus's deep brown eyes, and the way they looked in the starlight. He told her about the scars on his body and how it hurt to see smooth skin marred that way. He told her of the way his face could be filled with shadow and light all at once, and the way he kept trying to hide himself, as if something too terrible to imagine had scared him, too long ago to truly remember. He told her of the way he felt against his fingertips, and what it was like to hold someone so much smaller and so much more wonderful in your arms, and have them want you to. He was a small boy, Remus Lupin, but when Sirius Black described him he seemed to be the entire universe, the sun and the stars and the midnight moon. Cassie listened with rapt attention, hanging with bated breath on every word that passed his lips.

Sirius went on.

He told her about the soft feel of Remus's hair and the trembling of his lips, the graceful lines of his hands and the way he curled around a book as if he were trying to slip between the pages. He told her of the way it was when he cried, so rare and so terrible that he knew he could never let it happen again, never let tears stain his cheeks. He told her of the way his breathing hitched when they kissed and the way it felt to hold his hand when it was cold and the snow was falling. He told her what it was to hear Remus speak French, things Sirius would never truly understand himself but loved to hear because his voice grew deeper, and oddly shy, and the words rolled off his lips like maple sugar and honey. He told her of the way he made things so clear and so beautiful, simply by understanding them, himself.

He told her that Remus was like a book, words that hid meanings and meanings that transcended words, pages smooth to the touch and smelling of moss and thyme. He told her that Remus was like a library, filled with too much of too many different things, so that you could spend lifetime upon lifetime trying to learn him and love him and have a thousand and one lifetimes left before you learned it all. 

He told her through telling her about Remus what love was.

Cassiopea Black fell in love with Remus Lupin that afternoon as Sirius Black fell in love with him all over again for what he would have sworn was the billionth time, as the sun winked through the trailing, lazy clouds, high in the sky above. 


	15. Chapter Thirteen: La Premiere Chanson de...

**Wow.** For some reason, the feedback to the last chapter was exceptional. I love it! Thank you all so much, and please, **please**, keep reviewing like that. You have **no idea** how much it means to me. So **keep reviewing**! It's easy, right? And it makes me feel **really really good**. :P

So many thanks to **Teshi**, because we're married and all, and because she was the power behind the glorious **201** reviews I hit on the last the chapter.

And thanks to **everyone who reviewed**. Now, the chapter!

****

Chapter XIII: La Premiere Chanson de l'Ombre

There was something changed about Etienne's son.

The answer could have rested in the obvious fact that he had grown physically, more so than in any other previous year: at least an inch and a half added to his height, his shoulders just noticeably broader, his form no longer one of a stunted child, but of a stunted teen. The answer could have rested in such tangible facts, but no answer to any question about Remus ever rested in tangible facts, and probably never would. Etienne had long since understood that it would be misinformed foolishness to even humor the possibility. 

So then, perhaps, it had to do with the sparkle in Remus's eyes, the color of burnished gold somehow more powerful than the dusky, dusty brown. It could have rested in the assured way he had learned to move his hands, the way he would get distracted more and more by remembering something of this earth, so the absence of attention in his features was less of an ethereal chill down the observer's back. It could have rested in the long letters he wrote and received in turn, or the way he would softly, shyly ask to go to a museum, a movie, the sundae shop down the street, always after he finished reading one of those letters, holed up in his room. (When Remus came to him that way, Etienne knew it was at the urging of the boy who wrote him, and he could hardly refuse. They spent sunny summer days searching for shade, eating ice cream, or speaking of actors, or artists.)

After the first few days of wondering what it was that had changed in his son's appearance, Etienne gave up trying to work it out for himself, knowing that, in time, his son would tell him everything he wished to know. It was heartening, reassuring, to know this. It took the edge of loneliness away.

Remus had brought back with him, from one trip to a place he called 'Hogsmeade', something that made Etienne alternately laugh and wince. Chocolate Frogs, as the little lolly packages were labeled, seemed to be the strangest idea in marketing that Etienne had ever come across. Though they came with Remus's almost amused, yet no less assuring, recommendations, Etienne still found that he was wary of eating any sort of frog-shaped lolly that, apparently, hopped hopped about before you popped it into your mouth, and put an end to all that. They kept the frogs for three weeks in a cool place so they wouldn't melt, while Etienne worked up the nerve and the belief to actually eat them.  
  
"All right," he said to Remus at last, nodding over the paper he always read in the lull after dinner, "I think I'm ready." Remus stood from the dining table and took the two matching Chocolate Frogs from a side shelf in the refrigerator, on the opposite side of the kitchen. When he returned to the table he slid one brightly decorated box over to his father, keeping the other for himself.

"Be careful," Remus warned softly, "don't let yours get away."

"Unless I've decided to be incredibly humanitarian, and set the poor creature free," Etienne replied dryly, feeling oddly nervous. He tugged at the flaps on the box, cupped his hands over the opening, and waited. Something chocolate-y, and cool, thudded against his palms, and he instinctively caught the small, thrumming creature, which was trembling, with the cold or perhaps even excitement, he wasn't sure. He held it tight enough to trap it, but not tight enough to crush, or even maim it, quite aware that Remus was watching him fixedly. His son had his own Chocolate Frog pinned expertly with a grateful finger against the now open box that rested on the table before him. "Well?" Etienne asked finally, feeling ridiculous. "Now what?" Inside his hand the frog was rapidly becoming nervous, or maybe even impatient, banging back and forth as if it were a very large Mexican jumping bean.

"Now, you eat it," Remus explained kindly, understandingly. Etienne felt suddenly as if he were the child, and the thought, along with the realization that over-active chocolate really tickled, made him laugh.

"Oh, naturally," he muttered, though cheerfully, the rift between their two worlds serving only to bring them closer together, "now I _eat_ the frog made out of chocolate. How silly of me, not to know."

"If you keep it in your hands that way for long enough," Remus went on wryly, "then it might just jump itself out, and you won't have to worry about losing it halfway to your mouth."

"Trick of the trade, I suppose?" Etienne asked softly. 

"Something like that," Remus replied. 

"Well, I suppose I'll simply have to trust you with that." Etienne watched Remus's own frog struggle with a piqued curiosity, the chocolate-smooth body catching the overhead light and glistening, almost ethereal. "Do they, you know, ribbit, or something of the sort?"

"I don't believe so," Remus said, though he had to stop to think about it. "They just jump a little. Apparently, they've got one good leap to them, before they're all jumped out. Something like that. I've never gotten a chance to test them out."

"Well. One day, perhaps. For now, I'd rather not lose it." Though the idea of watching his desert jump about his kitchen was tempting, Etienne was by all means a very practical man. He worked at a practical job and did practical things, and remembered long evenings in the woods, when the trees rose high to meet the blushing sky. And each time he told himself, _no, I will never, can never have those days again,_ so while certain fantastical ideas amused him they also terrified him, because of what memories they brought back, ones he truly did not wish to relive. He was not a man who lied to himself. He liked his chocolate to keep still, and he loved it to move. 

"I think," Remus said after a few minutes of silence, "that it should be safe now, if you want to give it a go." The point hadn't been to ruffle his father's sensibilities with a jumping Chocolate Frog, so very non-Muggle that it was almost hysterical. The point was, the chocolate was sweet and creamy and rather the best to be found in Hogsmeade, except for Honeydukes', and both Remus and his father shared a deadly sweet tooth. The point was, he'd thought his father would like it.

"You're right," Etienne murmured, and he flashed a smile that was intensely reassuring, "I believe the little bugger's stopped bouncing around, in any case." He splayed his fingers, and took a peak, and couldn't help but grin at the intensely strange, jarring sight. "D'you eat it all in one go?"

"Some people bite the heads off first; they think it's a fantastic joke." Remus's lips quirked into a smile. "Some people, though, like to savor it for as long as they can. It's really very good."

"So I would imagine." Etienne drew in a deep breath. "Well, here goes." He opened up his hands, and quickly put the sweet to his mouth, biting off what he could manage to, which happened to be a forearm and half the torso. The consistency of the chocolate was sweet, almost cloud light, dissolving on his tongue but lingering there. Savoring the flavor was like putting a piece of magic behind your teeth, and letting it melt there, filling you with rich warmth.

"Well?" Remus asked, watching thoughtfully, that relatively new little sparkle of gold in his eyes. "What do you think?"

"I think it's fantastic," Etienne answered truthfully, "and I shall have to give you extra pocket money next year, so you can buy a good deal more of them." Remus smiled, a true smile, no matter how small it was, and began to work on his own Chocolate Frog, saying nothing in return. The two of them spent nearly half an hour simply savoring the sweet before the last bit of melted chocolate was licked from sticky fingers, and the last breath was breathed from grinning lips. Etienne felt oddly young again, young and blessedly carefree. In the silence that followed, Remus at last spoke, almost as if he were talking to himself, but he would never have been that careless.

"Last year," Remus said softly, "Sirius showed another boy in our year what-what I was." There was silence. Etienne had to force down the surge of anger that came, knowing that though a good reason would not excuse such a betrayal, it would at least take deadly intent out of his rage. "And I didn't speak to him after that, not for a very long time." Remus swallowed, the chocolate giving him the courage and the strength to remember, and then forget, and then move on. "Over the summer, he, and James, and Peter as well, spent a lot of time together. They were - I don't quite know how to explain it, but - they were working on a certain sort of magic. For me, for my sake, I suppose; I didn't know they were doing it, and if I had, I don't think I would have believed they could. They're - you see, they're Animagi, which means, they can turn into animals, and you can't tell anyone, papa, because if anyone knew..." Etienne shrugged, once, as if to say, _whom would I tell, Remus?_ Remus swallowed, and relaxed, and went on. "They come, with me, to where I spend the full moon. They spend the night." He was unable to say the relief, or the joy, or the completion it brought him, only that it was. Etienne would have to make of those words what he would, drawing on what he knew of the change.

Etienne's eyes flickered.

"I'm very grateful to them," Remus murmured at last, re-folding the box which the Chocolate Frog had come in. "I don't know what I would do, without that. I don't know how they thought to do what they've done, or how they managed it, but it's...right. Some things are right. It's _right_."

"And to think," Etienne replied softly, trying to piece together belief and disbelief, what he knew was impossible and what he needed to accept was reality, "that at first, I was so mad at the boy I might have strangled him the first chance I got." 

"If you had known, in the beginning, then I might have wanted you to." Remus shrugged. "Now, though, I'd rather you didn't, if that's all right."

"I don't think I could, for your sake, even if I wanted to." A pause. Etienne licked his lips, fumbled for words that wouldn't seem awkward, stumbling or clumsy. He was so maladroit when it came to discussing such things, simply because he knew nothing of them, and never would. "Tell me about them?" he managed at long last to ask. "Only if you wish to." For a moment, it seemed as if Remus was unsure of whether or not he should go into all he knew about his unusual brethren, what he felt, what he loved, or whether he should keep the entire thing his own precious, glorious secret.

"There's Padfoot, Prongs, and Wormtail," he said finally, his voice low. "Padfoot is Sirius; a great big black dog, still only a puppy really ; and Prongs is James, a stag, which suits him really; and Wormtail is Peter, a rat..." He trailed off, and smiled helplessly. "I can't explain it," he excused himself, calming himself from breathless, feral memories, and the scent of dog that filled him suddenly, mindlessly. 

"I wouldn't understand it anyway," Etienne said evenly, and all that was left to them after that, was silence. 

At long last the lights were on at 62 The Glen. For a very long time there had been none, only darkness in the shuttered windows, and though Sirius had more than once taken wandering, aimless walks with Cassie, always guided in the general direction of the familiar cottage, never once had it proved fruitful. That one safe haven, the sweet cups of tea and the sweeter portions of teacakes and scones and the sweetest voice to go with it all, were lost to him, and remained so until two weeks before Sirius's sixth year was to begin. It became a ritual, to check and keep checking, up until the day all his perseverance paid off, and he saw the light glinting on and off one dusky evening, muted behind the windowpanes.

For a while Sirius moved around like a mongrel, a mutt that smelled food somewhere he could not reach, and then he shuffled up awkwardly to the door, and stood there for a while longer. At long last, listening in on whatever movements he could manage to hear through the panel of would that separated outside from in, the door was opened before he even had to knock, and Hector looked down at the boy with a tired but wry grin.

"It's hardly the time for tea," he said softly, "but it would be ever so nice if you could join me for dessert. Would you be so kind as to come in?" Sirius smiled broadly, gratefully, and slipped in before Hector closed the door, and slipped a bolt into place.

Later, as they ate pound cake with the most delicious lemon-cream frosting, Sirius found that he had a thousand things he wished to say, and none of the strength to say it. Maybe it was what Remus felt like, always reading so much, and always saying so very little. Sometimes, vocabulary simply failed, and you were left with the overwhelming burden of words left unsaid, lingering against your tongue and behind your teeth.

"Another piece of cake?" It would be Sirius's fourth, but far be it for him to refuse.

"Thanks," he mumbled, offering up the plate.

"And then, while you're eating it, I'm sure you have a thousand things to say to me? I remember that quite a lot can happen in a single school year, and all of it more exciting than the last." He shook his head, and made sure Sirius got a piece with extra frosting, before he handed back his plate, and licked something sticky and sweet off the side of his own thumb. 

"A lot has happened," Sirius said cautiously, and busied himself by filling his mouth with cake rather than words. At least it could keep him distracted, for a little while.

"Care to tell me about any of it?" Hector's voice was cool, casual.

"All right," Sirius said, and another huge forkful of cake found its way into his mouth. He chewed for longer than was necessary, then swallowed. "Guess...I should start then, shouldn't I?" It seemed comforting to toy with his fork for a little while, something solid and grounding for while he spoke. "I think my brother hates me," he said finally, "I mean, it's not that he hates me, but that he doesn't love me, much less like me, anymore. Because he knows, I don't know how he knows, that I've fallen in love with someone he thinks I shouldn't have, even though he doesn't understand, and since there's no way for me to explain it to him so he does understand, I think, he's just going to go on not loving me until he starts to hate me." It hadn't, Sirius realized, made much coherent sense, as far as rambling went, but there was something understand in Hector's eyes.

"Go on," the man said.

"And it doesn't make any sense at all, if love is love! I mean, does it? That I love Remus, even if he is a boy, it's just that he isn't anything other than Remus, Remus who I love, Remus who I can't live without." Sirius ate another bite of pound cake vehemently, and swallowed it down without chewing enough.

"Careful, you might choke," Hector said, and his eyes were bright, and somewhat pained.

"It doesn't even matter," Sirius said, but he didn't mean it, and he knew Hector realized that much. "It's just, he keeps watching me," Sirius went on, sighing deeply, "Michael does, he keeps watching me miss him, and it hurts, it hurts that I miss Remus so badly and it hurts that Michael hates it so hard. Not me. Not yet. He doesn't hate me yet." And it all flooded back to him, that Michael was his 'main man' and his closest brother, his mentor and his best friend for so, so long that he didn't know what to make of this, that Michael would never understand. That Michael would grow to hate him for it. It was easy to see in those eyes, piercing and cold and unforgiving. He'd loved Michael since he'd known how to love -- so how was it possible to lose one love because of another?

"I'm so sorry," Hector said, "not because you love this Remus; certainly not because of that. Because there are people, a good many people, in this world who will not only be sorry that you are, but will, as your brother, be trained to hate you for it." He sighed softly, and shrugged. "You must, at least, do what you do for yourself, and for the people who do not force you into anything, any sort of choice, any sort of change of who you are. That, you will regret for the rest of your life, and there can be no rectifying it afterwards."

"I know," Sirius said miserably, dropping his fork to his plate with a clang, "but if he hates me, what am I supposed to bloody do about it?"

"You live," Hector said, his face lined and drawn, "you live. At least - and I assume here, that I'm correct -- your Remus loves you as you love him. There is no greater gift than knowing that."

"I s'pose," Sirius muttered, and they both fell silent. "I hope," he added softly.

"Ah," Hector sighed, frowning worriedly. "Doesn't he?"

"I don't know," Sirius replied, "I really don't know, with Remus." He became aware, then, that Hector was watching him, so hard it was almost scrutiny.

"What is it you were trying to do for him last year, Sirius?" Hector asked, and noted the way Sirius's face grew wary and pale.

"You wouldn't understand, and you wouldn't believe me, if I did tell you."

"Try me." Sirius shifted, uncomfortable with the direction this had taken, and with the straightforward, prying tone of Hector's voice.

"Where have you been all summer?" Sirius tried, nervous. "And where is the man you live with?"

"I _will_ answer your questions," Hector returned steadily, "if you answer mine." Suddenly, Sirius regretted having had three and a half pieces of cake, because his stomach had grown too troubled to handle all that, and heaping portions of Aquila's pot pie dinner. He thought he might very well be sick. After all, Hector was, other than Cassie, the only person Sirius could talk to, and he truly didn't wish to lose his council, and certainly not through such unnecessary circumstances.

"It's a secret." The boy's brow furrowed, and he played nervously with his fork, segmenting the remains of his pound cake, and arranging them in a neat circle around the edge of his plate. "And I can't tell anyone."

"Give me a bit of a hint, then. I'm rather curious. You were working so hard at it, after all."  
  
"Hogwarts," Sirius mumbled softly.

"What?"

"S'for, for Hogwarts," Sirius said, louder, perhaps a little too loud, as Hector startled back in his seat. It seemed, to Sirius at least, to be the best possible explanation, under the circumstances.

"That explains a great many things," Hector finally murmured, shrugging slightly, "as what else could you have been working on, except a little bit of magic here and there."

"You know Hogwarts?" Sirius's eyes were wide.

"...it would seem that I went to school there, though it feels like years ago, now. It's rather funny, that I should have returned to its halls after all these years -- for that was where I was, this summer, you see - during the few months that you were away from it." The smile on Hector's face was not a happy one, but whatever emotion it was trying to display was unclear, and Sirius struggled to name it, before he chose to give up. "I shan't pry any further, as to what it was you were doing, for I'm sure utter secrecy is needed, on that front; no doubt, to tell me, would be a betrayal of some sort, wouldn't it?"  
  
"Exactly." Sirius breathed out a sigh of relief, though he wasn't quite sure what to make of all this. It was one of those moments where your mind didn't know what to do, in all the dizziness caused by your head spinning. For once, Sirius chose the wiser course of action, and waited it out.

"I am, however, rather saddened to know that you shall have to be a part of--" Something dark crossed Hector's features, and he closed his eyes, lifting one hand to massage his temple weakly. At last, whatever it was had faded, and he sunk back against his chair, licking dry lips, swallowing thickly. "It isn't pleasant, you know; far from it. Magic. It takes more than it gives and changes who, what, you are. And there is power in it, yes, but power corrupts and power destroys, and power in the hands of men is truly intoxicating, but no more real than fool's gold, in the end." Now, Sirius could label what it was Hector's smile was trying to show: a deep, saddened bitterness, pained and old and rooted down to the soul. It was almost frightening, except for the weary, weather-beaten look in Hector's eyes, eyes that saw far too much more than they ever wished to. "But for now, I suppose," Hector said, brightening as best he could, as there was no use scaring the children, no need for it yet, "I shouldn't be talking of such things, as who knows what may be made of magic, or what magic may be making, mm?"

"You sound so much like him," Sirius whispered softly, feeling as if he wanted to cry, "that it sort of terrifies me." There was blunt, raw honesty to the statement, and Hector was nearly shocked enough to recoil. Nearly. Instead, he sat there, stunned into silence, not knowing what to make of those words. "There's never really anything quite so pure that words can't turn into something terrifying, like that," Sirius went on, trying to explain it. "And it's not possible anymore, to see the beautiful things, the good things, without seeing also the dark sides of them, the shadows, the-the lack of light, I s'pose, or all the cruelty, the misery, that goes on to counterbalance all the things you love. But isn't that," and here Sirius paused, struggling, "isn't all that darkness, isn't it what makes you see, and understand, what it is to have it's opposite? You can't have shadows without the sun. You can't have Remus, without the emptiness, the aching, behind his eyes. You can't have magic without the power and you can't have the power without the people who'll abuse it, in the end. It just, it works that way. Mum says, mum says there are circles in life, like, half the world is sleeping while the other half is in sunlight. You can't be given a gift you cherish without being given a punishment along with it, so's you know what it is you've really been given, in the end."

"I think you need to leave, Sirius." Somehow, though Hector didn't know what force was actually moving air through his lungs, he managed to speak. "Because if you don't, I'm going to start asking advice of a sixteen year-old, who quite obviously understands the world better than I ever will." Sirius found that his face was hot, and flushed, and he felt a little ill still, as if he knew what he was saying had been right, but he hated that it was, and he hated even more having to say it. It was admitting that Remus would not be Remus without that dark thing, which made him quiet and unsure and always questioning of himself. And it was true, but it was painful to acknowledge, and it gave Sirius a headache, just trying to work it out.

"Not for a second," Sirius mumbled, shy again. "It hurts to think about it, too much, so can't we justforget about it? Not that I'm hungry for anymore cake, but" Sirius trailed off, searching. "you still didn't answer my other question."

"He's staying late at work," Hector said after a pause, speaking the words softly, fondly, but almost forlorn, as if the words were what he wanted rather than what was, "but he should be home in a few hours. He told me not to wait up. He still loves me, for some inexplicable reason, and sometimes you really are so grateful, for love."

Sirius didn't think to ask what that meant, until it was too late, and the opportunity was gone forever.

"Uhm uhmmm, uhm uhm belle," Sirius hummed, lazy but impatient, tapping his foot along to a remembered, internal rhythm. His battered suitcase rested at his side, and he lounged against a pillar with easy, confident nonchalance, despite how nervous he was. There was a crowd of people, all seeming to hum with whatever orchestrations dictated their own movements and lives, but he was barely listening, ears almost seeming to perk forward as he waited, and listened. He'd smoked a little before but then it had started to remind him of Michael, and he tried not to think of his brother now, because such thoughts set him on edge and made him worry too much about more than he cared to think about. Certainly, he didn't have to think about it, because the start of the school term was his escape from it all. 

The smell of smoke still lingered on his fingers, though, and when he turned his head he could scent it in his hair, so that finally, nerves grated, he tied his hair back and scowled to himself. He grew more annoyed as the time passed, annoyed as the cigarette smoke shrouded him, annoyed as he had nothing else to do but think about Michael, and think about how Michael first showed him how to roll a fag. He'd look like a pretty picture, he knew, when Moony and the others arrived, but that was what he got for trying to be early, and at least they could be grateful that he wasn't late.

It was being so gods-be-damned nervous that made him so gods-be damned sulky, he determined. Funny how every other year he'd been so childishly excited, but there was something hot and heavy in the air on this day, and everywhere he looked, he seemed to see a frown. The humming was the only thing that kept him relatively sane and cheerful, though the scowl still danced petulantly over his lips, which he licked often, to get rid of the taste of the cigarette smoke that clung stickily to his flesh.

"Uhm uhmm, uhm uhmour," he finished off, only remembering a handful of words and trying to put them to optimum use by sticking them here and there, woven in amongst the uhms, in order to rhyme. 

"Bloody hell, it's hot." Lilly was beside him then, stretching her arms up, her suitcase between her legs. Its brass buckles shimmered in the heat. The orange hair that frizzed in the humidity around her face was disturbed only by the occasional, panting breeze, which was no more effective towards cooling down than a dog breathing on you would be.

"When'd you get here?" Sirius's voice was rumpled, grumpy.

"About the time you started scowling at people, instead of just into space," Lilly replied wryly, fanning herself with her hands. She had long, graceful fingers, but they'd lost all meaning for Sirius once James started describing them at length and with copious, repugnant detail. Sirius sidled closer, though, to catch the cross-breeze, in the hopes that it would do any amount of good. It didn't, naturally. "You know, if you keep on like that, your face might freeze that way, when the wind changes direction."

"There isn't any wind," Sirius muttered, but he couldn't help grinning just a little at the ridiculous youthfulness of the statement.

"Well," Lilly replied, smirking, "touché." She ran said graceful fingers through her hair, pushing it up off her neck, letting the air hit it for a moment before she realize, that was hardly a relief. "It shouldn't be this hot, you know," she added, ruffling her hair up. She was a mess, anyway, so it didn't matter now. "If you're frowning so much that Remus isn't here yet, it's probably because the air opened up a mouth and swallowed him whole."

"Thanks, Lil, I'll remember to talk to you so much more often."

"Lil?" Lilly snorted. "Where the blazes did you come up with that stroke of genius?"

"The heat spoke to me," Sirius said mockingly, pulling a face.

"Come on, wind," Lilly muttered half-heartedly, then, "it's too hot to argue with you, even, and that's saying something."

"It's true, Lil," Sirius agreed.

"But if you call me Lil again, I'll kill you without breaking a nail."

"Certainly, Lil."

"When you least expect it, you great overgrown mutt."

"Whatever you say, Lil."

"Ah, the two people I love most in the world, getting along as swimmingly as they ever do," James said smoothly as he came up behind them, brushing mussed bangs out of his eyes. "And Merlin, it's hot."

"Yes, thank you, we've noticed." Sirius's tone was impossibly dry, but it still couldn't suck some of the humidity out of the oppressive air.

"Only mad dogs and Englishmen," Lilly murmured, but neither of the other two heard her.

"I just thought maybe I should point it out," James said, still jovial, though he was flushed in the cheek, and his glasses were half-fogged in the heat. "Where are the others, then?"

"Probably off somewhere, with their heads stuck in a refrigerator freezer," Lilly said, grinning at the very idea, despite how refreshing it might have been at the moment. She could think of nothing nicer than to do just that, to feel the sweat on the back of her neck freeze, to feel cool air brush along her skin.

When Remus at last showed up, Peter in tow, they all of them plowed their way through the thick, moist air to get into the cool of the train cars before they made up for lost time. The heat was so intense that only Sirius's eyes came alive, to see that sight he'd waited so long to; but the look he and Remus exchanged was one of deep, secret longing, with the sweet lacing of joy interwoven into it. That one look said everything without needing so much as an added "hallo," and the desire for touch and for kiss and for embrace was kept at bay, until at last they grew used to the cool, dry air on the Hogwarts Express.

It was intoxicating, seeing each other again, as it always was, and at last, when their bodies cooled, and they could bear to touch each other, they did, arm brushing against arm, hip against hip, cheek to shoulder and cheek to hair. Sirius loved it. Sirius always loved it.

"I'm so glad to be back," he breathed, reverently. Remus's hair smelled just right, clean and soapy but also like bark and oak leaves. Oak leaves had a distinct smell, different than any other type of leaves and obviously so, tinted with the smell of acorns, their scent almost fitting in with their shape. Sirius breathed in deeply, because it had been far too long since last he'd revelled in this particular smell. Proper trains of thought had been devoured by the heat and any grumpy mood had been banished from his conscious the moment he'd so much as caught a glimps of Remus, and registered that the loneliness of the long summer was over. 

"We're not even back yet," Remus murmured, into the lovely, soft curve of Sirius's neck. They were making Peter uncomfortable, and, if the boy knew what was good for him, where Sirius's fists were concerned, he'd probably leave sooner rather than later, so they could have their privacy. Peter had an uncanny sixth sense that preyed on emotions rather than understanding or empathizing with them. It set Remus's skin crawling when he least expected it, when he found that Peter was watching him, though Remus was never quite sure afterwards just why he reacted the way he did. 

"I'm back," Sirius replied easily, "I'm back where I wanted to be." He felt rather than saw Remus flush, and brushed his fingers over the slope of that smooth cheek, the curve of it, the heated plane. "You're blushing, Moony."

"It's the heat." Sirius found he was grinning at the obviousness of the casual lie, simply because he'd missed that voice, missed the slim fit of that body, missed the way his heart beat differently when they were together. What he wouldn't give, he thought, his one moment of mourning, to know that Remus felt the same way, too. 

"Oh it is, is it?" Remus shrugged lazily, curling himself up to fit in closer at Sirius's side, legs tucked up against his own chest. This was nice. He felt small and lazy in a world that wavered in the heat, as if suddenly, life was alight with smoke. He hadn't felt comfortable all summer, speaking to his father of things he could not possibly describe, scripting letters to Sirius of life he could not possibly be living, when he was lacking so much.

"How've you been?" Remus switched tactics just as easily as he had lied. Sirius's grin couldn't be stopped, and it spread over all his features, rough but tender at the same time on his blunter features.

"I told you all about everything, in my letters."

"Tell me again, now." 

"Well," Sirius said at last, "I turned sixteen, and I don't feel a day different. Don't s'pose I ever will. Oh, and I missed you horribly, and I did absolutely nothing, and sat around missing you some more. And then, I did some stuff with Cassie, but I was missing you then. And I was a great lazy sodding bore, because, damn you, Remus J. Lupin, a guy can't get you off his mind even if he tries." Sirius paused. "I didn't really try. It was pretty bloody awful, you know, the way I acted. It's worse, what you've done to me."  
  
"I'll try not to be this way, in the future." Remus's voice was dry but softened, sparingly sweet and deeply, intensely pleased. Sirius prided himself on being able to tell, now, when Remus's silence meant he was so happy he could barely speak, or so lost in his own agony he couldn't move his lips to make so much as a single sound. The smaller boy was hard to learn, and it took patience, diligence, insightful understanding -- three qualities Sirius Black could hardly be described as having. And yet, he had worked on it, and he was working on it still and, if Sirius did say so himself, it was certainly coming along. Perhaps not swimmingly; not yet, anyways.

And it seemed as if Remus, too, was trying to learn Sirius, in return; the boisterous way he filled a room, the loud way he interrupted, the careless way he disturbed spaces and thoughts and the eager to please nature of him, the kindness along with the rash foolishness born of impulses that were rarely ever thought through. Sirius Black hurt people, but he never meant to; leastways, not the people he loved. And as Sirius treated Remus as one might treat porcelain, Remus was equally careful, the both of them so sensitive, in such separate ways.

"Don't you change for a single second, you bloody wonderful creature," Sirius murmured, burying his face in Remus's hair. "Don't change or I'll go mad, I will, because damned if I know what in hell I'd do without you."

The heat wave didn't break. By the time Halloween rolled around the temperature was still sky high, and a special spell had been put into effect all throughout the building - which acted as Muggle central air conditioning might have, only better, and without the electricity bill that would inevitably be involved. Students moved through the halls with groggy laziness, grateful for the slight, though fake, chill in the air, thinking of the heat outside with deep-seeded resentment. Why should the world act as if it were summer without the relief and the laziness allowed during those three glorious months? It was almost as if the weather were mocking each student, pumping heat into the air as professors tried to schedule tests and essays. The two seasons conflicted miserably in the students' minds, and managed to nearly drive them mad during those months of unendurable heat.

Sirius, who spent all the free time he had in the air on a broom, high over the Quidditch field, resented this the most, as if it were a personal affront, and spent most of his free time with his head in Remus's lap, listening to him read. They went over the Count of Monte Cristo most of all, which was Sirius's favorite for an unnamable, impulsive reason, especially the scene of the escape. It struck Sirius as gloriously admirable, what cunning went into such an escape plan, but also what spur-of-the-moment flashes of brilliance, and, of course, what sheer dumb luck. 

"It isn't what opportunities there are, really," he told Remus, in one of his moments of lucid insight that came when you least expected one and left you reeling sometimes for weeks afterwards, until the next came and knocked you off your feet, "it's not the opportunity, itself, but what you make of it, that counts." Because after all, Edmond could have spent the rest of his life in that place, rotting away into atrophy for a crime he did not commit, had he not seized that slim chance, had he not clung to it with all he had. It wasn't just opportunity, though that was a part of it; it was more who you were, yourself, and the opportunities you made from the opportunities you were given. Sirius forgot the theory moments after he spoke it, because it didn't seem all that important or useful, except that it made Remus smile a secretive, wonderful smile.

There was also endless Shakespearean verse, and though Sirius preferred his comedies to his tragedies, Remus seemed to love the grief held in the latter, so Sirius humored him, because he loved to hear the lilting of his voice when he read something he cared about. There was Wilde, Oscar Wilde, if Sirius recalled correctly, and some of his stuff was absolutely incomprehensible, while some of it was laugh-out-loud hysterical, and kept Sirius amused for hours. Sometimes, the humor was too subtle for Sirius's taste, though again, he would wait for them eagerly, just to see Remus understand, and come to the very cusp of laughing, without ever quite getting there.

There was a poet named Eliot and when Remus read his lines aloud Sirius felt suddenly a great, cavernous hole in his chest open up, quite against his will. It was that he understood perfectly what the words meant without even having to truly listen to them, and when he furrowed his brow and set his mind to the task of trying to explain why, why Eliot's poetry made such profound and stirring sense to him, he found that he could not put a finger on when or where the words had rung true. They did in his heart, he decided at last, and not in his thoughts, and it shook him, and made him uncomfortable down to his bones. Such truth should not be written. Such truth was simply the truth of action and of desire and of gut feeling, of love and of loss and of death, and no one should ever put it to paper for anyone else to read. It was what you felt at birth and what you felt at the very end of your life before you felt no more. It was not for a poet to describe. It gave you the bloody willies, was what it did.

The one line from Eliot that Sirius remembered for all his life -- which, in truth, was simply the line he could not forget -- was a circle of language, not sad but not hopeful, either. "In my beginning is my end." It was the first line of the poem. "In my end is my beginning." And that was the last.

After they read that poem, Remus could sense Sirius's inherent discomfort and he stopped reading Eliot altogether, though sometimes, sometimes, if he left a book of Eliot's collected works lying upon a desk or on the edge of his bed, he might catch Sirius flipping through the pages, searching for the one poem which contained those two perfect, devastating lines. 

The long weeks passed this way, trapped indoors, and during this time the four found their only respite hot, lethargic nights of the full moon, of Remus's change. The days passed but they did not seem to pass, stumbling along with parched throats and weary legs. Even minutes, even seconds, were drawn out into painfully long measurements of time by the heat in the air, which stopped progress all together, and melted energy, and atrophied limbs. 

One night in particular, Sirius at last came to the breaking point with boredom. His limbs needed something to do; his mind was tired at nights but his body restless, in desperate need of exercise. 

"Let's steal James's cloak," he whispered impulsively, heatedly, into the shell of Remus's ear, "and get out of here. We can go to the Shack. We can just, we can get away from everything. Do something." Remus felt a shiver run down the length of his spine. He was unable to refuse.

"It'll be hot out there," he murmured, because he felt he needed to simply outline the flaws in the plan for the sake of posterity, "are you sure you want to go?"

"I just need to do something," Sirius groaned, his fingertips itching and his muscles coiled, like a cat tensed and about to pounce, "I just need to get out of here or I'm going to lose my mind!" His eyes glittered wickedly. "We'll bring ice cubes, or something. We can keep each other cold with them."

"How?" Remus asked, blinking, but Sirius was already off to filch James's Invisibility Cloak, and Remus really wasn't in the mood for protesting much longer, anyway. When Sirius got ideas like these, it was simply best to go along with them, because he was impulsive but he was infinitely more stubborn than anyone Remus knew. Sirius set his mind to something, and he got it done, and there was no changing that fact no matter what you tried to do.

Remus could smell Sirius when he returned, though he couldn't see him, and he waited patiently until Sirius himself grew absolutely unable to wait a minute longer. He threw himself at Remus then, tackling him back against the bed, and then drawing him into the folds of the cloak so they both disappeared completely from view. Had he not been pressed so close to the other boy's chest, so a part of his vibrancy and his exuberant being, Remus would have murmured something dry, but he was content this way, and wouldn't have ruined it for the world. Besides, Remus had learned to be more careful of Sirius's feelings, as of late, because no matter how loud the boy was, he was still easily hurt.

"We'll figure out a spell to make ice cubes," Sirius whispered, very matter-of-fact, "and then we can spend the night in the Shack, or something, or out in the woods. I'm not bloody joking; if I don't do something -- anything! -- soon, I'm going to go barking mad. I swear."

"We can't have that," Remus said softly, not sure what he felt about the woods, or about being there, but knowing, no matter what, that Sirius was there to protect him from the shadows he himself made. It would, inevitably, be all right, and none of his apprehension showed through in his wry tone.

"Spoil sport," Sirius grumbled, "c'mon, before I change my mind about taking you."

They spent the night around a bucket of ice Sirius filched from the kitchens. They'd spelled it to keep from melting, and around it, they made the oddest sight: two figures leaning in to the shivery cold that radiated from the bucket. It's purpose was to banish the hot air all around them; it was the exact opposite of nestling close to a fire to chase away the chill of the autumn air. 

"It isn't a proper fire," Sirius remarked offhandedly, stretching his body out luxuriantly. The heat really wasn't so bad, when you were like this. "So I guess we can't tell ghost stories, or anything like that." And he moved closer to Remus's side, then, slipping a hand against the back of his neck, threading long, callused fingers through his hair. "Oi, Moony?"

"Yes?"

"D'you think it's too hot to kiss?" Remus paused for a moment to think it over, and Sirius bit back the nervousness that came with the pause, the nasty cut of dismay, and waited.

"I don't think it's ever too hot to kiss," Remus answered truthfully, and Sirius broke out into the widest of grins. It really was something Remus liked: finding different, small ways to make Sirius smile. It wasn't hard, if you went about it the right way, and it left you with this glorious, giddy feeling, that not even smiling yourself could give you.

"Oh you don't, do you." There was that sparkle again in the haunting blue of Sirius's eyes. His fingers played over the soft, sensitive hairs at the base of the smaller boy's neck, watching him shiver, and loving to imagine every thrill that might run down Remus's back at the feel of the touch. 

They kissed. Sirius initiated it; most often, it was Sirius who began a kiss, and Remus who finished it, a deft tugging of his lips that he'd learned somehow, which made Sirius long instantly for more. No doubt it was on purpose, because when it came to instinctive moments, if Remus simply let go of his nervousness, the smaller boy always knew what to do, and how to do it, and when. Sirius moved forward on his knees, lips warm upon lips, and Remus moved back, leaning on his elbows, feeling Sirius's dark hair brush against his own cheeks. For a while, they kissed, just this way, until Sirius's muscles grew tired and he pulled back, licking his lips and grasping at words to find something fitting to say.

"It is too hot for kissing," he decided at last, with a firm bob of his head. Beneath him, Remus seemed to glow, the color of a wheatfield in the sunshine, and Sirius cupped his cheek, looking at him thoughtfully while drinking in the sight of each feature, and how shadow moved over it in this lighting. 

"Well, here," Remus replied, voice a low murmur, and he moved deft fingers forward to undo the buttons on Sirius's shirt. The action startled Sirius, and then pleased him, fingers brushing along the collar of Remus's T-shirt before they moved to the hem at the bottom, and tugged upwards. Remus's hands dropped back and then lifted up, the scarred skin of his abdomen and impossibly smooth skin of his back bared to the air. He wasn't sure whether he was freezing now, or burning hot, and finally came to the conclusion that he was both, in the face of the glorious contradiction that was Sirius Black. Meanwhile, Sirius shrugged himself out of his own shirt, pressed one hand almost shyly against the scar on Remus's belly, palm to marred flesh. It was getting paler, had gotten less angry and red since the first time he saw it, but it made him angry, accusatorily so.

"I've got an idea," Sirius said suddenly, and he pulled back, startling Remus with the abrupt movement. For a moment he felt a pang of loneliness, at losing Sirius's touch, before he adjusted to being just himself again, none of Sirius's vivid person merging with Remus's own. "Lie on your stomach, Moony?" Sirius pressed his cool palm back to Remus's skin, this time, on his shoulder. Remus gave him a skeptical look. "Just, trust me," Sirius insisted, and Remus sighed, and gave in, turning around to stretch himself out, stomach down, on the warm plank floorboards beneath. 

His skin was pale, awash with moonlight, the color of marbled cream and cast with silky shadows. The slope between shoulderblades was breathtaking. Sirius could have, if he'd wished, run a finger down the center of the other's back, and counted each vertebrae. Resisting the urge to tell Remus he was too thin, he licked his lips and watched the muscles in his shoulders move as Remus folded his arms beneath his head, and tilted his head to the side, cheek against his forearm. The shadows splayed like fingers over his flesh.

This was the stuff Sirius's dreams were made of. 

With a weakened grin, he turned to grasp an ice cube from the spelled bucket, holding it between two suddenly cold fingers. It was impulse, and if he stopped thinking, then impulse would probably guide him better than actual thought would. At least, in a situation like this.

"Hold still," Sirius murmured, maneuvering himself up Remus's body, perched over his hips, breathing in the sight of his bared, smooth back. There were no scars on his back, and the plane of perfect flesh was as it should be. Smooth. Untouched, unmarred. As youthful as they _were_, as youthful as Remus never was otherwise. Pinned between both of Sirius's legs, Remus tensed, then relaxed slowly, waiting. Sirius could almost taste his curiosity, his oddly eager confusion. It filled him with a giddy, lightheaded feeling, wanting to please, not knowing quite how.

The ice cube was beginning to melt. Two shivering droplets of water fell between Remus's shoulders, and pooled there, glinting in the moonlight. Remus gasped, and shifted.

"Hold still?" Sirius asked it this time, and the wriggling beneath him stopped. "Right," Sirius praised softly, and he ducked his head down, licking the wet spot from Remus's skin with a cautious motion of his tongue. Remus's breath hitched in his throat, which was encouragement enough for Sirius to continue. It was funny, how unselfconscious he felt, experimenting this way. All he wanted, was for Remus to want this. It was incentive to try harder, and to do things right, and as such, it was a delicious challenge. 

It was exactly what cooped up Sirius Black needed to get him feeling alive again.

Sirius brushed the hair away from the back of Remus's neck, toying for a moment with those sensitive, fine hairs, before he ghosted the ice cube over the largest bone at the base. He heard Remus's breath catch again, roughening, quickening, and he closed his eyes against the thrill it sent through him. 

"S'a good way to cool down," he murmured lazily, before kissing the smooth skin over firm bone, soothing away the chill. Remus said nothing, but Sirius hadn't expected a response.

Sirius lifted himself up again, leaning his weight all on one arm. He pressed the ice cube to his lips in thought, then moved it back to Remus's neck, drawing a wet, cold line down his spine, just enough to make the other shiver. His breath followed, cooling the moisture, disturbing the hot air and turning it into an easy conductor for a pleasant chill. Remus's muscles twitched in response, his arms stretching out before him, grasping at nothingness, at empty air. Burying his face between those perfectly sculpted, perfectly visible shoulderblades, Sirius let the ice water trail over Remus's side, so that he trembled, and whimpered moments later. One wet trail had found its way to running over a fairly recent scar, flesh sensitive there, more tender. The feel of it was a shock to Remus's system.

"It's okay?" Sirius asked softly, unsure.

"Yes," Remus answered, though the words seemed laborious, hard pressed to leave his lips.

"This?" Sirius drew himself up, let the ice melt against the curve of Remus's lower back as the smaller boy held himself faithfully, obediently still. The water glinted, cool and blue, until the slim moon went behind a cloud, and all they were, was shadow playing against shadow. Sirius chose that moment to lap at the little pool, almost, almost a canine motion, before he kissed the soft, now-cold skin, letting his lips rest at the soft fuzz of nearly invisible, pale golden hairs that could be felt there.

"This," Remus murmured lightly, his back arching up, his hips pushing forward. Sirius molded his cheek to the dip in Remus's back, right there, right before the curve of his backside. He could feel the spine against his cheekbone, three countable bony ridges. Sirius dropped the ice cube onto the floorboards and let it melt there, unheeded and unnecessary. 

"Tell me something beautiful, Moony. A poem. Something French. Anything you want." _I want to listen to you talk for hours and hours, into the still of night._

"Anything?" Sirius's hair tickled like silk tickled.

"Anything." Sirius moved his head, kissing a particularly poky bone. It was so comical, so affectionate, and so shadowed. He felt terribly young. "Tell me anything, Moony." It took a moment for Remus to think of something he remembered, something he knew well enough to remember when Sirius was pressed so close.

"Souleve ta paupiere close." _It's so hard to talk around you, because all I want to do is hear you breathe. Words fail me. But you ask me to speak, and I'll speak anyway, because it's what you want of me._ "Qu'effleure un songe virginal. Je suis le spectre d'une rose que tu portais hier au bal."

_ I don't know what you're talking about, but I only want to hear you voice, saying what I don't, never will, understand._

"Tu me pris encor emperlee de pleurs d'argent de l'arrosoir, et parmi la fete etoilee, tu me promenas tout le soir." _Sometimes I don't listen to myself speak. I listen to you listen to me speak. I almost like to hear it._

_ Keep talking. Whatever you do, don't stop talking._ Sirius shifted, thrills running through his body at the language. He had an erection, that much was obvious. What was more; he was sure that Remus could feel that he had one, as he pressed himself closer, stroked Remus's shoulders, and listened. 

"O toi, qui de ma mort fus cause, sans que to puiisses le chasser." _But the only words that suit you aren't my own. I can't speak to you, of you, the way you should be spoken. I can't modify you with my adjectives. There is nothing so destructive as the wrong word._ "Toutes les nuits mon spectre rose a ton chevet viendra danser."

_ Your voice is like singing._ Sirius pushed himself against Remus's thigh. Sirius breathed in deeply. Sirius pushed himself against Remus's thigh. Sirius felt his eyes close and his ears strain to listen and his hips strain for something else. _Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Merlin, what you do to me._

"Mais ne crains rien, je ne reclame ni messe ni de profundis; ce leger parfum est mon ame et j'arrive du Paradis."

_ Words shouldn't sound like this. Jesus. Oh, Jesus._

"Mon destin fut digne d'envie, et pour avoir un sort si beau."

_ But I asked for it. I wanted it. Brought him here wanted to hear him talk wanted to feel him talk--_the rumbling of the muscles in Remus's back as he spoke and the movement of Sirius's hips and-- It'll end, it'll end, because I won't have enough patience to make it last.

"Plus d'un aurait donne sa vie, car sur ton sein j'ai mon tombeau."

_ It's like falling when you've already fallen._

Sirius felt his breath move all wrong through his throat and heard Remus's breath move all wrong through his own throat, and felt the smaller form push back against him, and he nearly howled with that wordless joy. It was selfish, making Remus talk at a time like this, when all he no doubt wanted to do was bay to the moon. Or maybe it wasn't selfish. Maybe it was just what Remus wanted. Reminder of words in a land without.

"Et sur l'albatre ou je repose, un poete avec un baiser."

_ Jesus, JesusJesusJesus--_

It was worth whatever pieces of him he lost, pieces of himself, pieces of others, pieces of his future and memories of his past. There was loss you could bear, and loss you could not, and Sirius knew, clear as day, which was which. He held tight to Remus's shoulders, and pressed his hips against the back of his thigh, and w himpered something wordless.

"Ecrivit: Ci-git une rose que tous les rois vont jalouser."

And Sirius tensed and he gasped thickly and Remus made a soft, helpless sound, keening and small in the back of his throat, and then it went very white, and very black, and then colors began to come back to them. And then sight, true sight. And then smell. And then the feel of their bodies, and where their bodies lay, and all the little discomforts brought by lying against hardwood floors. 

"You make anyone else's words sound prettier'n they were when they were written, Moony," Sirius whispered softly, when he truly came back to himself. And Remus had nothing of his own to say.

The Gryffindor Common Room was quiet. Too quiet. Soon, the silence would be over, and it would come quickly upon Lilly Evans in a manner that would hardly be pleasing. Oh, she knew the Common Room far too well for it to ever surprise her. She was only pretending to read, now, pretending, and waiting.

"Hey, Lil." It drove her insane that Sirius chose to call her that. It drove her insane that Sirius chose to call her that specifically to drive her insane. She kept her eyes fixed casually on her Charms essay and didn't even give the mongrel that satisfaction he gleaned from her bristling. No - she was far more mature than these petty games required her to be. Lilly Evans was above this. 

"Hullo, Sirius. Want anything? And no, you can't 'work with me' on the Charms essay; you have Remus to copy off of, isn't that right?" Naturally that set Sirius on edge. It was so sad, really, how Lilly could always win at these games, even when she was trying to be above them. Well, always won, except for when he persisted in calling her Lil, at the end of every blooming sentence. Then, she went absolutely mad. (It was in that way that she was fond of Sirius, and even fond of that horrid nickname. Because it was that one thing in her life that was a constant, that never failed to make her crazy, she hated it because she loved it and loved it because she hated it.)

"Oh, do put a sock in it, Lil." Sirius was grinning once more. He always won if he used that nickname, he'd found, and he always had to win, even though right now he would have much preferred to be serious.

"What is it that you can possibly want, then, puppy?" It was time for Lilly Evans to fight fire with fire.

"I'll get you for that later, Lil. Right now, I'd rather talk. Seriously." There was a pause, in which Lilly stored the equally appalling nickname for later use, and ran through her mind all the reasons Sirius could possibly have had for wanting to talk with her. Remus, she decided at last, firmly, it had to be Remus. When was it ever anything but?

"What's up with Remus, then?" Lilly asked coolly as she put her quill down. It was always nice to show Sirius just how transparent he really was, and just how one track his mind so obviously was. 

"Nothing's up with Remus." Sirius sounded oddly dismayed. "That's the whole point, I guess. I mean, there could be something up with Remus, there could be anything up with Remus, but I don't know if there is, I never know if there is." So it was the same problem as always, Lilly realized. Quiet people hid things always with their silences, while loud people never truly knew what to make of that, never truly learned that the silence was not aimed at them.

"You need to stop doubting him, puppy," Lilly murmured, and though her words were wry, her tone was soft and surprisingly kind. Her voice was so sincere that Sirius didn't even notice the offending nickname, and even if he did, the way it was said would have been enough to convince him he liked it.

"He -- he just -- he doesn't show things the same way I do, I know that, but sometimes I can't help but wonder, Lil, whether he doesn't show them because he doesn't feel them or because he just, he just can't."

"Just because his isn't so obvious doesn't mean he doesn't feel things as strongly as you do, if not stronger. Whenever you doubt him, Puppy, just look in his eyes, and you'll know you're being a grand fool to ever think he'd give you anything less than he could." Lilly's smile was sad, but mostly because it was remembering Remus's smiles, and they way they were sad. And really, Remus did have this way of making people who loved him fee insecure, and incredibly so, as if their intense love of him was never strong enough -- never strong enough to make him love himself. 

"You're right," Sirius murmured softly, and his cheeks were flushed, perhaps with shame, perhaps with embarrassment, perhaps with a combination of both. Lilly felt almost bad to have to point such things out to him but it was necessary, or else he'd go through life doubting himself. It would have been one thing if he spent his time doubting Remus, but it wasn't quite that. It was, rather, that he did not know if Remus doubted him yet, could not see that hero worship in those deep brown eyes, and so he doubted himself because he thought Remus might. 

"Of course I'm right," Lilly said softly, trying to be jocular, to lighten the mood. "I'm always right, and don't you forget it, Puppy." Sirius halfheartedly made a face, then sobered once more.

"Oi. Lil?" Lilly found herself inexplicably dreading whatever was to come next, if only because Sirius's deep blue eyes were looking so serious, so thoughtful, so uncharacteristically dark.

"Mm?" Ever since she could remember, Lilly Evans operated under the principle that, if she could pretend something didn't bother her, then it actually wouldn't. So far, she'd been successful, if only because she could badger anything she wished into being significantly less scary than it would be, simply because she wore down the threat's self confidence, and eroded its power. 

"What's it like? Knowing that nobody's going to hate you, because you like James, and that's the right thing?" It sounded all funny when he put it that way, but it seemed it was best to be direct, and speak of things as other people would, put them into other people's terms, so he could properly describe what it was he knew certain people thought, and would think, of him. 

Lilly felt as if all the air had suddenly left her, as if someone had socked her in the gut and left her reeling, seeing stars. It was far from expected -- but it made sense, after all -- and she hurt, suddenly, as if whatever bickering that went between Sirius and herself was brother and-sisterly, and she should hold him in her arms now, and protect him. 

"I," she began, then choked on her words, and could not go on.

"Shouldn't've asked it, maybe? I don't know, I just-- wanted to know. Is it different? Guess you wouldn't know, you've never been Well, you know. 'Wrong' before. You're always right, Lil, and don't I forget it."

"Puppy," Lil murmured, shaking her head, "you know it isn't wrong, why're you asking me such a bloody question? Just to shake me up?" Sirius looked sad, wounded. If he'd had big floppy ears in this form, they would have been drooping.

"Really, I wanted to know. D'you love James like I love Remus? Or d'you only like him? And if you love him, is it more or less, different or the same? Just love, in the end?" Lilly wondered for a moment where this creature came from, and how he could possibly creep up with such stealth to replace the loud, most-times offensive, ever-careless boy that joked and play-fought with her. "Because love is what you feel it is, anyway," Sirius muttered, talking to himself now, "not what other people think, so maybe it is the same, and not different, at all. Except you have to treat it different. Hide it so someone doesn't get hurt or resent it a little, when you can't hide it, and someone does. Well, not resent it, exactly, just question it."

"Don't question it." Lilly's voice was firm. "I know you won't but I'm telling you anyway."

"But what if Remus does? What if he loses people, like I lose people, like I've lost 'em already, and--and what if he hates me for it? What if I lose everything? Him?"

"Stop asking so many questions, Puppy!" It came out as a harsher snap than she'd wished it to, and Lilly hoped the apology showed in her verdant eyes before she went on. "Stop asking so many questions. You know you don't mean them. The only answer is, 'I love,' because you do, don't you, great overgrown thing, so no bloody questions are needed for it. For any of it. Are you listening to me?"

"I s'pose." Sirius was grinning sheepishly. "You still haven't answered my question though, Lil." 

"And what question would that be, Puppy?" Lilly sounded exasperated, but it was all in good humor.

"Do you? Love James like I love Remus?" There was a pause, and Lilly thought about how best to answer a question she didn't know, as if she actually knew it. (And then there was the part of her that panicked; and then there was the part of her that did know, but panicked anyway; and then there was the part of her that wanted to kick Sirius for being too damn smart too damn unexpectedly.)

"I don't know how you love Remus," Lilly answered at last, "can you really know?"

"Oh," Sirius murmured softly, shaking his head -- how could she ever doubt? "Oh, of course you can." He grinned slightly, and ducked his head, and Lilly realized later that he must have been blushing, because she'd never really seen him try to hide himself before.

"So then," Lilly murmured, feeling embarrassed, and though Sirius was waiting for more, there was nothing else she had to say. "Charms essay," she muttered, after an uncomfortable quiet needed to be lifted.

"You still need to answer my question, Lil."

"I really don't, actually."

"Lil."

Silence.

"Lil."

Silence.

"Lil, if you're toying around with my best mate, I think it's my job or something to find out, y'know." There was no more laughter in Sirius's tone, so the words were threatening rather than a joke. Sometimes, the boy could be like a pitbull; that, too, came upon him unexpectedly, when anything he loved seemed to be endangered.

"I'm not toying around with him. Where are you getting this from? You're a bothersome little puppy; go get Remus to take you for a walk." Lilly tried to curl in on herself, burying herself behind the book she was researching. 

"Answer me, Lil." Deftly, Sirius plucked the book out of her hands with swift fingers, closed it with a snap, and plunked it down on the table beside her chair. "Look at me, and answer me."

"I just don't know," Lilly said, her eyes snapping emerald fire. "Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Sirius, what's come over you? Give it a rest!"

"So you don't, then." Sirius's voice pinned and trapped and accused, and it was a stronger force than Lilly would ever have expected.

"What? No! I never said that!" If that bloody over-zealous ball of fur didn't just leave her alone and stop putting words into her mouth, she was going to punch him good, better than good. He was going to lose a tooth or two.

"If you don't know, then it's obvious," Sirius murmured, and the anger was gone, replaced only by sadness. It hit home more than the yelling did.

"No, it doesn't mean that," Lilly contradicted, firmly, her eyes hidden in the shadow of her long, pale lashes, "it just means you're a little scared, and a little young, and a little too weak to put names to anything, yet. So stop shouting about, Sirius Black, you don't know anything about it, about being too scared of anything, because you show it all and then some, and it's so easy for you." For a while, neither of them said anything, Lilly feeling ill and Sirius speechless.

"You don't know me too bloody well, then, if you think I'm not scared out of my mind with him. Everybody knows I love Remus except Remus and the reason that is, is because nobody knows if Remus loves me except Remus. And maybe he doesn't, or maybe he does; and maybe I'll never know for sure. Christ, Lil, I just wanted to know if you were going to make James happy, or if you wanted to. That's all." Lilly licked her lips, playing nervously with a lock of her own hair, winding it around her finger until it snapped and she began again. She'd always hated that particular nervous habit of girls, young women, because it looked so very damsel-in-distress, particularly pouty, particularly blonde. It peeved her no end that she was doing it herself, now, because Sirius Black had come crashing into her sensibilities, knocking them all helter skelter without proper warning.

"Sorry, Puppy."

"yeah. Sorry, Lil."   
  
"Right."

"Right." Sirius lifted a hand, and rested in on Lilly's shoulder, lightly, giving it a faint squeeze. It was feminine, the feel of her slight frame, her delicate build, beneath his palm, and it was infinitely different from touching Remus, the only person he really touched anymore, despite how small Remus was, despite how fragile or how frail. "Just had to know. I think you do. I mean, from the way you acted."

"Some words of advice, puppy." Sirius blinked.

"Yes?"

"Quit while you're ahead." Lilly lifted up a hand gracefully and ruffled Sirius's hair until it was a comical, flopping mess, then gave him a swat on the arm. "Now get." Sirius scowled, mock-petulant, and ran his fingers through his hair to smooth it out, though the motion was an unselfconscious gesture. "You'll have to learn to do it at some point you know," Lilly called after him, as he turned to leave. 

"Right!" Sirius tossed back over his shoulder and then, with a wicked grin, added, "but later, y'know?"

All Lilly Evans could think at that was: How very like him.

It was a dark night, the darkness pierced only by the wavering of the pale moon, full and round in the pitch-black sky. Nights were not usually this dark, not noticeably so, in any case; nor were the nights ever this impenetrable, this starless, this ink-seeped black. But on this night, clouds had settled over the stars, and veiled the moon, too, in a deep almost-mist, so that the world was thrown into unforgiving and unexplained darkness.

Trapped again between the wood walls, the wolf howled, a desperate, haunting howl, and Padfoot ached and ached and felt yet that there was nothing to be done. 

The transformation had been harder this time around than any time before, something to do with the clouds veiling the moon, something to do with how bright it was, anyway. The day had been filled with a deep sort of calm, but as the night began to fall, the silence became ethereal, and then the clouds came out, thick and dark and splotched against the solid sky. 

Again, the wolf howled, over and over and over, so that the sounds echoed throughout the small room. Wormtail hid behind one of Prongs's antlers and Padfoot paced, back and forth, back and forth, watching the wolf beneath the window, begging by the windowsill. It was obvious that something had to be done, or the wolf would go mad, or they would go mad, or one of them would get hurt. The question, simply, was what that something was.

Padfoot trotted over, and nuzzled lightly, worriedly, at the wolf's muzzle. There was no visible response to the touch; just the twitching of tensed muscles and another low, keening howl to the moon. Something about the brightness of the moon, the stillness of the eerie night, made the wolf yet more hungry for freedom than ever before, and it would not give up until it had gotten what it wanted. With a low, rough bark, Padfoot pulled away, though he nipped at the wolf's neck to get its attention, and then made his hesitant way towards the door.

In its corner, the wolf froze, golden eyes wide and fixed on the black dog's form.

Again, Padfoot barked -- and this one was a warning for the wolf to stay exactly where it was. Prongs tensed, Wormtail squeaked, and Padfoot threw his great, shadowy body at the wood of the door. The old hinges gave a great, creaking sound, and the lock snapped. The second time Padfoot knocked into the door, the knob cracked, and fell across the room, and the splintering bolt cracked in half, and the door swung open, into the dark night.

For a while, the wolf was still.

Then, it let out a low, glorious baying sound, and bounded towards the open door, towards the promise of freedom at last.

With one snapping, commanding bark from Padfoot serving as their orders, the other three moved swiftly after the russet colored, unnatural beast, out into the hold of the dark night. Beneath Padfoot's paws the earth was hard; against his fur and on his wet nose, the air was cool. Just before him he could see the streak of color that was the wolf, and he could scent on branches, on leaves, on roots, the direction the other creature was taking, the places where it had stopped to explore or even to mark what was its own. It was intoxicating, the wolf musk so heavy and so present in his senses, and mixed the with the smell of tree bark and dirt and moss.

Ahead of them, the wolf howled, in warning to the world and in glory of the moon. The sound was low and far from mournful, telling all those quivering animals that had to tremble as they listened that it was powerful over them all, at last. And it let Padfoot, and Prongs and Wormtail, know also where the wolf was, and where they should follow. 

Padfoot lifted his head and let out a rougher, lower howl in return, and sped up through the brush of bushes and low tree branches, not stopping to take in the scent, just following the wolf's trail. He lost it, once; found it again; lost it once more. He was unused to tracking this way, unused to such 'play.' For the wolf, it was second nature, and had been in every single dream since it had known the terrible anger that came with being caged. 

And then the wolf charged at him from the side, knocking him over and claiming his neck with its teeth, his belly with its claws. The growl in Padfoot's throat was muffled against fur and more fur and familiar scent, and they rolled about with each other for a long time until Padfoot at last found his muscles tiring, and the wolf triumphed. They fell still. Golden eyes gleamed above the black dog, glinting and powerful in the cloudy, just-barely-moonlight.

When they were in the forest, when the wolf could draw from all the land and all the trees and the great white moon watching above, Padfoot would be forced to submit, to bow his head or offer his neck as the wolf so pleased. A little whine at last escaped Padfoot's throat and the wolf licked at his muzzle, then pulled away, tail swishing proudly. From the roots of an adjacent tree, Wormtail squeaked, and Prongs bowed his noble head in deference. 

With that final display, the wolf was at last satisfied, giving up another howl, this one victorious. Above them, behind the fingers of the clouds, the moon winked down in untroubled serenity, unmoved, uncaring, completely untouched. The forms of the four animals beneath scurried about like so many ants and had the moon had eyes, it would not have been watching this particularly unimportant display, anyway.

Throughout the night Padfoot wondered if he had made a mistake, but instinct had dictated his actions, and he was all too canine, all too impulsive. He could do no more than to act as impulse told him to, the black and white world before his pale eyes showing only one path, only one opposite path, and only split seconds moments in which he could choose one or the other. He did not act, he did not live, for acting and living, acting and being, were the same when the song of the woods was the song of his blood, and the wolf was panting hot in the curve of his cocked ear. 

But the wolf had never been free before. For all its life it had been caged, kept from the secret desire of its gut and the open desire of its nature. For all its life, it had never once run beneath the glow of the full moon, felt the moonlight in the curves of its shoulderblades, felt the earth yield to its paws. Never once had the wolf known this sensation, alive at last, at long last, to do as it pleased, to realize its full power. Here, it was the leader of its pack, able to protect and to punish; too, able to hold its body proud and its tail erect. Here, among the whispers of the trees, was its kingdom, the movement of leaves upon leaves, the rabbits scurrying from bush to bush, or frozen, terrified, in the hold of the hedge.

It was time to hunt, time to find prey; time to chase his own tail and the tails of his packmates until the moon at last released its reign over the sky. Only then would the wolf return to the doors that kept it trapped in too-small, unnatural places, and only then would the wolf allow itself to find rest.

The wolf cried out its pleasure to the vast expanse of bitter black sky, and again began to run, so that the air whistled past its ears and stung its eyes sightless. Running with Padfoot at its heels, almost like a shepherd, guiding him the wolf this way, guiding it that. Running with Prongs loping gracefully at its side, the rat-scent nestled neatly between two doe-soft ears high, high up. 

They did not follow the stars, but made their own paths, trammeled through the underbrush. They left their scent to mark as much of the woods as they could manage, so it would truly be theirs not only in their own minds, but daily in the minds and the hearts of the woodland creatures that lived there. From month to month, that scent would last, thickest, heaviest, in the dead of night, when only the owls dared to seem peaceful. 

Around them were night moths and the occasional bat, and rabbits too that scattered out of their way. Small mice lurked underneath the bowers of fallen leaves for protection. In bare tree branches were the remnants of bird's nests, now abandoned. The trees themselves were leaf less and dried out, twisted above, gnarled against the sky, bony, finger like maps. 

Beneath their feet were brittle branches and old, crackling leaves, and the hard packed earth, and moss, and small pebbles, and larger stones. Nothing about their run was smooth, nothing about it was silent, and though they ran so fast that they could not see, save for the blurs of forest life so easily passed by, they noticed everything, and saw it as clearly as if they looked evenly upon it with both focused eyes. 

The forest was a world of wordless secrets, passed between the tree-roots, heard by mice ears, and at last sleeping unspoken in owl bellies, behind downy owl fur.

It was everything that man once had been, a garden, a deep lush garden, but it was also the space where man had become what he was, now, dried up and waiting on the edge of snow for the coming of winter. 

The forest was the right place for the wolf and its pack, impossibly better than the creaky floorboards and old yet solid wood of a small house in the middle of it all. Isolated. Caged. Pretending it was 'home'. Even Wormtail learned as he rode between Prongs's antlers to love it, love the feel of freedom, of rushing air, of gasping wind. In this place, the world was in the curve of their ribs and the spaces in between their claws, the bend of their hipbones, the blink of their eyes. 

The world was the first squirrel they chose to chase, hunting it down until it froze, cornered, against the bark of one tall tree, and let out a desperate squeak. One snarl from the wolf, and its heart exploded, a hemorrhage perfect and split-second swift in the tiny creature's chest cavity. Their first sobering casualty, the wolf sniffed around at the body and reveled in the smell of blood so present on the air, while Padfoot shuffled unhappily behind it, and Wormtail averted his eyes to the sight that hit far too close to home. Prongs watched on in thoughtful silence with reproving eyes. On some unspoken agreement, the four of them began to cover the body with twigs and pebbles and crumbling, dry leaves, until those panicked eyes were hidden properly from the brightness of the moon. Never again did they dare be so careless with life, with the freedom the wolf had longed so long for. Never again did they dare treat the forest with such impersonality as could kill a squirrel with a tremor of unsurpassed, unmanageable fear.

And they ran on, silent shapes streaking across the silent night, knowing they were the strongest there and then, and foolishly thinking that what was so in the forest would be able to last them forever. 


	16. Chapter Fourteen: La LoupGarou

Beware. Lots of Lycanthropy lies within. Sorry it took so long to get this chapter out -- the life of a Junior is madness, I tell you, madness. Unfortunately, so little of it involves Remus and Sirius. But, here she is; as always, read and review, or I shall sick my wonderful minions on you. Or something.

No, seriously. R&R. Oh, yeah, and...enjoy!  
****

Chapter XIV: La Loup-Garou

The owl came as one of many, on a day where the sky was cloudless, on a day where the air was cool and crisp and you could see the pinpricks of tawny owl bodies coming far before it was time for the Owl Post. Because it was only one of many, it went completely unnoticed, as the Great Hall was filled with the fluttering of wings and the general excitement the Post brought always. Sirius Black continued to argue vividly with Lilly Evans as James Potter occasionally tried to get a word in edgewise, as Remus Lupin watched and tried not to smile at the inevitable nature of the animated conversation, as Peter Pettigrew tried desperately to ignore the entire thing, as he was hardly a part of it. When the owl landed, though, on the table in front of Remus, dropped a pristine letter down before the boy, and began to preen haughtily, as if it were waiting for an immediate and impending response, the three who were speaking fell quiet. All five stared at this unusual and unexpected occurrence, not knowing what could be made of this, for Remus never got letters at this time of year; the only ones he ever received were from Etienne, the day of Christmas, every year, and the evening of his birthday, within the hour of his actual birth.

Besides: it was obvious from the flourishing, important handwriting that whoever wrote the letter, it was decidedly not Etienne, who wrote in plain, simple script, as if even his handwriting were trying to go by without comment.

"Well." Peter was the first to break the foreboding silence. "That's unusual." Remus simply blinked.

"Go on." Sirius spoke next. "Just, open it." Remus leaned forward easily, lifting up the heavy envelope and slitting it open, unfolding the letter within with perfectly steady hands. It was hard to convince himself that the others weren't leaning forward, on the edge of their seats, waiting to be told what the contents were, waiting to know what this was all about.

The letter read:

_ Dear Mr. Remus J. Lupin,_

Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, has recently informed this Office that you are a Werewolf soon to reach sixteen years of age. According to the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures Act of 1811, Beast Section, Werewolf Subsection, Procedure No. 194C Initial Werewolf Registration, "All those cursed by the bite of the Werewolf shall be registered with the Werewolf Registry Office, Beast Division, within three full moons of the act or, in the case of a minor, within three full moons of the attainment of the age of sixteen years." Therefore, your examination and registration is scheduled for the thirteenth through the fifteenth of November. You are to report directly to the Werewolf Registry Building by 9 A.M. on the former date.  
  
Part of the registration process is the assessment of the state of your Lycanthropy and your ability to safeguard the public during your transformation. The result of the assessment will be duly recorded in your permanent file. At this time, you will also be informed of the current laws and regulations pertaining only to Werewolves.

Failure to appear at the scheduled registration time, the thirteenth of November at 9 A.M., will be deemed as nocompliance to Procedure No. 194C Initial Werewolf Registration and will result in a fine of up to 500 galleons and could include incarceration for up to one year in the Fortress of Azkaban. Should you wish to dispute the information provided by Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, you must do so in person at your scheduled registration time.

Sincerely,

Mr. Samson Dujardin  
Werewolf Registration Specialist  
Ministry of Magic, Beast Division  
  
Remus folded the letter neatly, trying not to let the vision of that handwriting burn too deeply in his thoughts, and bowed his head for a moment. He hated the feeling of the others pressing close to know, for once; hated the reminder in this so-human part of his life that he was anything but human, and he would always be this way.

It took a few moments, and then he moved on to the next page, which was obviously another letter, though it was contained in the same envelope. The script of this one was blunter, seemed almost more inviting, more kind, than that of the first, but Remus read it with numbed fingers and helpless eyes despite that strange kindness within. The kindness seemed forced, as well, and far from truly comforting.

_ Mr. Remus J. Lupin,_

We have recently been informed by Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry, of your Lycanthropic nature, and, per this information, must request your presence at the Center of Werewolf Support Services, from the fifteenth through the twenty-first of November. 

At the Center of Werewolf Support Services we are interested in Lycanthropes' daily lives as human beings, their social interactions, and their physical wellbeing. It is necessary that those of a Lycanthropic nature are allowed to live day-to-day as any other man or woman is able to. As of yet there is no cure found for the bite of a werewolf, but we are trying to make life with the strain of monthly changes more bearable, life with the bite more livable, an intolerable world more tolerable. All unregistered Lycanthropes are subject to persecution without proper protection, are more likely to develop such diseases as are only found in those of a Lycanthropic nature, and may or may not be a menace to society at large. We wish to provide you with the information and tools to ensure that you are as safe as possible.

The Werewolf Registry Office shall provide for your transportation the day after your change. No preparation is necessary; it is, in fact, discouraged.

Sincerely, 

Mr. Aubrey F. Burl  
Werewolf Support Specialist  
_ Ministry of Magic, Being Division  
Office 18, Building BW  
_  
"Let me see the letters, Remus."

Sirius voice echoed against the corners, all the angles, of Remus's silence. He had been staring at the blank parchment beneath the signature on the second letter for a full minute, now. 

"Remus, please, let me see them?"

He was stunned into the sort of silence that usually erupted, volcanic, into a terrible, great scream. This one did not, could not; they were in the middle of the great hall, in the middle of Hogwarts, in the middle of so many people, so many normal people, so many lucky, normal people. Still, Remus wanted desperately to scream.

"C'mon. Remus." Sirius's voice was worried, now, and closer, as if he had leaned forward in his seat, trying to snap the other boy out of it, whatever 'it' was. This was not the behavior of a normal boy, this was not the situation of a normal boy, this was none of it normal, none of it right. That Albus Dumbledore had told his secret was a knowledge that slid its way like shards of glass behind Remus's eyelids.

With slow but deliberate movements, Remus folded the second letter, placed it atop the first, and slid both across the table. Sirius snatched it up quickly, and nearly tore the first as he unfolded it to read. Remus watched him but looked right through him to the wall behind as he read, as his brow knitted up in anger and disbelief and the scenery changed behind him, a few students passing by, a great tawny owl preening itself on a table a few rows away.

Sirius slammed the first letter down ­ Lilly picked it up after him, and she and James began to read ­ and started on the second, while a girl made blurry by distance leaned over to whisper something in a friend's ear. It would have been better, maybe, to focus on the flecks of gray anger in Sirius's eyes but Remus could not bring himself to watch him, his emotions so real, so human, and so oddly alien. For the first time in his life Remus harbored the real possibility of what it would be like to run. 

Peter pushed out of his seat and moved over to stand behind James and Lilly, reading over their shoulders but watching Sirius and Remus just as carefully. The sound of his feet clapping on the hardwood floor slammed Remus back into the real world, the two of them colliding with each other and sending everything off its original axis.

With slow but deliberate movements, Remus stood, pulled away from the table, watched Sirius's face go blank in question, and then bolted from the room with surprising speed.

"Oi!" He could hear Sirius cry from behind him, "Oi, Remus, wait!" But if he listened to Sirius and stayed in that place he would suffocate. There was something about running that cleared a person's senses, that sent fresh air pounding through their lungs and a slight, waking chill against their skin. The rhythm was soothing, drummed by the sound of his feet against the floor. The idea that he could run and run with no direction and no place to hide was, for a while, a comforting one; he could move until his legs gave out beneath him and he collapsed, and maybe then whatever was chasing him would have fainted of exhaustion, too. Then, then, there would be a net of safety, dark and cool, the adrenaline fading from his system, the blood slowing in his veins. Then, then, there would be a shield of weariness wrapped all around him, and perhaps he would live the rest of his dormant life in a corner, where only the cobwebs would find him. 

It was possible. Or perhaps it was not possible but if it were possible it would be perfect. You thought strange things when you ran, strange rhythmic things that followed the beat beat beat of your footsteps trailing along behind you, trying to chase your speed, managing only to echo off the walls.

"Remus, where in Merlin's name are youwait up, Moony, slow down!" Remus was running from him, deep breath in, Remus was running from him, force legs a little faster, Remus was running from him, just up ahead, just a few steps up ahead. Sirius had longer legs, had a frame better built for this, and though Remus was stubborn and strong and had the advantage of a head's start on Sirius, the bigger boy would not give up, and somewhere, he prayed, Remus had to know that, would have to stop. Or, simply, Sirius could, would, catch up to him, if need be. 

This wasn't all right. He'd already closed most of the distance between them, but Remus wasn't looking back, wasn't, probably listening to him. Maybe he didn't even know that Sirius was there, that Sirius was putting on enough speed to catch up. Remus was a pale thing, pale on black, streaking away before him, as fast and untouchable as light shifting in through a window. Blink, and he'd be gone. Blink, and you'd lost him forever. It was tremendously important for Sirius to catch up to him now, and he didn't know why, just knew that it was. 

"C'mon, Remus, Remus, just wait for me! Just slow down for a second!" Sirius needed to get through to him. Sirius was content to run for as long as was necessary, so long as he was running with Remus, and not chasing after him. Sirius was fine with this pace, fast and desperate, so long as he had Remus by his side and not some ethereal glimmer, an oasis, a mirage, far off in the wavering distance. Just a few more steps, he told himself, and you'll be closer. It was like a nightmare, running and running and not getting where you wanted to be, where you had to be, where you needed beyond need to be. 

Sirius gritted his teeth, and bowed his head, and put on a burst of inhuman speed, wanting for a moment to drop down on all fours, and bound towards the boy. Four legs were faster than two, after all. But he was far from so very foolish, and simply pounded on, the sound of his feet slamming the hard floor beneath, mixing with the sound of Remus's own footsteps, and driving him steadily on.

He had no idea where they were going. He knew only that he had to stop Remus before they could get there. 

Not much further, now. Not much further. Remus could hear another set of footsteps behind him but he had to ignore it, had to, though they came closer, though the voice with them was familiar, almost made him want to stop. 

And he could feel the closeness of them, now, the breath behind him loud enough to hear, loud enough to disturb the crisp, untouched air. Was he this easy to catch? Was he this easy to be found? Apparently so. Plagued with helpless indecision, Remus turned suddenly, eyes widened, feet almost giving out from under him. Sirius caught him, stumbled with him, pressing them both up against a cool wall, and felt the way Remus's body burned with heat, the way his shoulders trembled with each quivering, ragged breath. 

"Jesus, Remus," he whispered, glad to feel the boy at last, though somehow afraid that he had not, in fact, done the right thing by giving chase, "Jesus, why d'you have to run from me for?" Remus had been truly afraid of being found. No matter that it was Sirius, that he trusted Sirius more than anyone else in the world, that he invited Sirius to be parts of things that Sirius knew no one else had ever been or ever would be, besides him. Remus had not listened to his voice, had not turned to look at his face, had been afraid that he was being followed despite who it was following him. 

Remus opened his mouth to speak, then shut it, burying his face against Sirius's shoulder, hands fisting in the front of his robes. 

"...it's all right," Sirius mumbled, cupping the back of the smaller boy's head gently, fingers tangled with that silky hair. 

"It isn't all right." It was the first time Remus had ever said such a thing. Sirius felt ill.

"We'll talk to Dumbledore. He'll explain this. It's gotta be what's best for you, Remus, or he wouldn't have done it."

"What's best for me." Remus sounded pained, incredulous. "What's best for me!"

"You could get sick, you could get hurt, people whoidiots, like my brothers, maybe, could hurt you. That's what it said in the letter." Sirius swallowed down the roughness in his throat. 

"You don't understand."

"We'll talk to Dumbledore. He'll tell us, he'll show us both, we'll understand"

"You don't understand!" Remus pulled back, wild-eyed. "You don't understand, you can't understand, it isn't something to be understood, he told people, he _told people_!"

"He had to have had his reasons, didn't you read thewhat they said, what they said, Remus, you have to"

"I don't have to anything! You don't understand. You don't!" Something angry flared in Sirius's belly at the words.

"It's not because I don't want to! It's not because I don't try! I don't understand, I can't understand, because you don't tell me anything! You don't let me, I ask and I try and I never learn anything about you no matter what I do...!" Sirius grasped Remus by the shoulders, holding him far enough away so that he could get a good look at him, so that Remus, in turn, could get an equally good look at the other. Maybe, just maybe, the hurt anger in Sirius's blue eyes would explain more to him than Sirius's stumbling words could. "Now we're going to bloody go to Dumbledore, and talk about it, because Christ knows you're not going to tell me anything, you're never going to tell me anything." Sirius drew in a breath. His hands on Remus's shoulders were shaking. "And he'll explain everything to you, and I'll be there for that, and then I'll go. I'll just go, so you can choose to talk to Professor Dumbledore or not, but it doesn't have to hurt anymore that you never choose to talk to me."

Remus was silent, his eyes fixed on Sirius's face.

"Now come on," Sirius muttered, not looking at him, not wanting to touch him, suddenly, "you're going to Professor Dumbledore's office, and he's going to explain it to you so it does make sense. He's probably just trying to take care of you, or something. I don't know. I don't know anything. I don't know."

"Sirius."

"Save it, Remus."

"Sirius, I'm afraid." 

Silence.

"You know what I am, Sirius."

"And you know that I've never once hated you for it. You know that I've only ever"

"But it makes things different," Remus whispered, "it makes me different."

"It doesn't make me the enemy." Remus looked away, face drained of all color. For the second time, Sirius felt sick to his stomach.

"No," the smaller boy said, wearily, "it makes you everything in the world to me, and I don't want to ruin that with what I am. It does mean that I, that I'm trying, I'm trying so hard, and it all seems right and then I get those _letters_ and I remember what I am and how I got this way and what I could do to you, what it is that makes me _wrong_"

"Don't say that! You're not wrong, I'm not wrong, we're not bloody wrong, don't say something like that, you don't know what you're _saying_."

"I know what I'm saying! About me! I know what I am, I know what I am, I know what I am and I _hate it_, I _hate it_" Sirius clamped a hand savagely over Remus's mouth, pressing him back against the wall.

"Be quiet!" He said it wildly, desperately, his eyes screaming out their wrath. "Stop saying that, stop it, I hate it when you hate _you_ because I, I can't..." A shaky breath. The feel of Remus's lips against his palm. "ÖI can't imagine that. Come on. Just come on. I can't talk sense into you. I can't talk to you." It hurt, more than Remus could say, and once Sirius spoke the words, he began to regret them. "I don't mean it that way," he muttered gruffly, smoothing a lock of hair out of Remus's eyes.   
  
"Yes," Remus replied, voice echoing hollowly, "yes, Sirius, you did."

"Let's talk to Dumbledore." Now, Sirius couldn't meet the other boy's eyes for fear of facing his own shame. 

"You're right."

"So let's go."

"Not about Dumbledore, not about that. Aboutthat I don't let youunderstand."

"Stop it," Sirius whispered. It was weak. He was too tired, too afraid, too unhappy to fight. _And maybe that's how Remus feels_, he thought somewhere, in the very back of his mind. He was a right git, he was, for ever saying any of those things, for ever being so careless, as he always was, and hurting Remus when all he wanted to do was to make things right.

"It was my mother," Remus went on, ignoring Sirius's plea, perhaps not even hearing it. "It was my mother. I wanted to go with her; it was her; my father saved me; I've never told anyone, only me and my father know. Our secret." Sirius lifted his head, eyes wide, horrified, fixed on Remus's face. He didn't have to ask what the other was talking about. It was too clear, in fact, far too obvious, far too blunt for the subject matter. "But now you know too, Sirius. That's what trust is. Learning things you don't want to know. A present, but it isn't, it's learning too much, knowing too much, and hating it."

Sirius was silent.

"We should go to Dumbledore's." Remus's voice sounded old. "You're right about that, too. Let's go."

"No."

"You wanted to go."

"Not yet. Please, not yet." Sirius swallowed the hoarse thing in his throat smooth, wanting to be comforted, wanting to be held, but unable to ask for it, when he wasn't the one who deserved it most. "I'm sorry," he said, after that, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

"Don't be." Remus rubbed at the side of his nose. "I just don't want to go to this place. I just don't want to. I just don't want to be what I am, and what I am is who I am, now."

"Well." Sirius felt his heart break. It wasn't the first time Remus had done this to him, but it was in a new way, now, one Sirius was hardly old enough to be prepared for. He needed his mother, his own mother, Sirius decided at last, he needed to curl up against her and have her call him Poppet as she only did when he was terrified or miserable, that close to crying. "I want you whatever way you are, and that's going to have to be enough, for now." Sirius was not expecting what came next.

"It is." Remus grasped at Sirius's hand with both his own, and held it. For a full minute, neither of them spoke.

"Oh," Sirius said at last, "oh." He couldn't possibly manage to be more coherent than that. "I'm a right git, you know that?" It took him at least a minute more to get that out, and then he gave up speech altogether, grasping Remus up into a tight, promising embrace. "I keep promising myself never to be stupid about you again, and I always am. I always am." 

"It's enough," was all Remus said. "It's enough, Sirius. It's enough."

And then Sirius had to open his bloody stupid mouth, because somewhere in him, he was too afraid to trust:

"...is it?" Sirius asked softly. "I don't know. Am _I_ enough?" And the silence descended between them again, questioning, without trust, and filled with trembling, grasping pain. 

"You must forgive me." Albus Dumbledore sounded and looked tired as he apologized, his usually bright, ever-vivid nature muted in the dejected atmosphere of the room. Naturally, this did nothing to improve the moods of the two boys seated across from him, one sullen, silent and angry, the other lost and miserable, his eyes stumbling through unconnected thoughts. "I was called away on some very unexpected yet very important business, almost immediately after I sent out the letters to the Registry and the Support Services, and was unable to inform you of all this. In fact, I have only just arrived back on the grounds a little more than a half-hour ago, which is perhaps fortunate, in this case. I can only imagine your shock and your dismay at receiving the Owl Post today. For that, I am terribly sorry." Naturally, Professor Dumbledore had had his reasons. While Sirius did not feel in any way comforted, he at least felt that, once all the shock and hurt of the past hour had faded from his system, he would be.

"As for my original motivation, of passing on the information to the proper departments of the Ministry," Dumbledore was continuing, "I do hope you at least understand me, and my desire to do what is best for you, Remus; for your safety, for your well-being, for your entire future."

"I do," Remus said, his eyes fixed on his hands in his lap. 

"You understand, but you simply weren't expecting such news," Dumbledore added, after watching him thoughtfully, "and it seems to have had more of an impact than I would ever have thought. Would you like to speak with me about all this? Perhaps I can do something or another to ease your mind, or your spirits?" It was no surprise to the man when Remus did not open his mouth to speak at that; it did seem rather uncharacteristic, though, that the boy kept his eyes fixed on his lap, and did not so much as lift his head to acknowledge those words. Barring all else, at least Remus Lupin was always unfailingly polite, even in the face of that which he by no means wished to do.

"Maybe I'd better go for this," Sirius mumbled, starting to stand, and it was then that it all became glaringly clear to Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, who read people more avidly than books, and expressions as simply as if they were monosyllabic words that people wore. 

"Aha," he said, softly, and lifted a hand. "No, Sirius, I think you'd better stay, so that we may, proverbially, kill two birds with one well aimed stone. Now. Shall we begin?" Still, Remus was silent, almost stubbornly, childishly so, though he lifted his eyes, unsure and almost afraid, to fix upon Albus's kind blue eyes, the color winking behind his glasses' crescent shape. 

"He doesn't want to talk about this in front of me," Sirius whispered, watched with deep, fake intent the movement of Albus's writing quill as his paperweight bounced agitatedly beneath it. Sometimes, Albus had cause to note, his paperweight was far better at judging the atmosphere of a mood and the anguish of those within it than most people had the capacity for being able to do. It was uncanny, really; which was why his paperweight was a particular pride and joy of his.

"I'm sure that he doesn't want to talk about it in front of anyone, Mr. Black," Dumbledore replied kindly, "but perhaps with a slight bit of coaxing he may find that he does wish to, after all."

"I'm sorry I've been such trouble," Remus said, speaking for the first time since he'd arrived, "for both of you. For everyone. I really am."

"Now, now, Mr. Lupin," the headmaster murmured, brow furrowing, "you aren't really sorry at all or, if you are, you most certainly shouldn't be. It is only natural for people to feel things and to express them; it is only natural for other people to react on impulse, and then, later, on understanding."

"But I'm not natural," Remus explained before he could stop himself, and, sensing how important a sentence the one he had just spoken was, he shook his head, and curled in on himself in his seat.

"Well," Dumbledore said, watching Sirius wince, and go a little green around the edges, "that certainly is a start. Mr. Black, have you anything to say to that?"

"Yes!" Sirius, as he always did when faced with something that saddened or pained him, had grown defensive, seeming almost angry, when it was easy for anyone in their right mind to see all he was doing was trying to protect himself. Though Remus nearly jumped in startlement at the sound, it was clear from the gravity and the lack of luster in his deep brown eyes that he knew, and hated himself for causing such pain in one he cared about so deeply. "Yes," Sirius managed after that, calming himself, "yes, I do have something to say to that, but he'll just say I don't understand, and maybe, maybe I don't. Maybe I shouldn't say anything at all."

"On the contrary, Mr. Black. I wholeheartedly think you should. It is not in Mr. Lupin's _natural_ nature not to listen to people, so I think you had better give it a shot, after all. But do make it a good one."

"I," Sirius said, and looked towards Dumbledore, then towards Remus, entreating, pleading, "I just want him to trust me, but he doesn't. And I don't think he knows ­ I don't think _he_ understands ­ that I'd do anything for him, anything at all, so he can tell me, he can just _tell_ me, what he needs, when he needs it."

"Or you'll only feel unnecessary." The headmaster's brow was furrowed in thought once more, and his voice was somber, as if he were trying to translate all the emotion behind Sirius's words into sentences that were blatant enough for Remus to have to understand. "Or you'll feel unwanted, perhaps? Unimportant?"

"Exactly," Sirius agreed, hands clenched into fists on the arms of his chair. "Exactly how I _feel_. Now. All the time." Two pairs of eyes, both different shades of blue, turned to focus on the small boy, curled up in defense in his chair, waiting for some sort of answer. Remus struggled for a while with the words, opening his mouth, then closing it again, unable to form anything remotely coherent while the sheer despair pulsed through his veins. Sirius did not think he was enough. Sirius did not think he was everything. Sirius did not know ­ but why should Sirius know? Had Remus ever told him, ever even tried to tell him?

No.

"That isn't how it is," Remus began, helpless.

"Isn't it?" Sirius asked. 

"Ah, Mr. Black ­ you've had your chance to speak. I believe now it's his, and you must listen, before you reply." Dumbledore fixed his eyes once more on Remus's face. "Go on, Mr. Lupin," he said, encouraging. It was hard to continue once he had been cut off, but from the look on Dumbledore's face, Remus knew he simply had to try.

"That isn't how it is," he began again, swallowing down a thickness, a fear in his throat, "that isn't how it is, and it's my fault you think so. I can't say things. I can't. I know you want me to, but I can't. I can't, for anyone." He dug one fingernail in underneath the other, and the sudden jolt of pain gave him clarity enough, strength enough, to go on. "And I want to," he said, "I want to, Sirius. If I could, I would, but I _can't_."

"Then I guess that's that, then." Sirius's voice was flat. Sirius's eyes were not looking at him.

"No!" Remus said, and the force of the one word was more than the other two had ever expected. It was enough to startle Sirius into turning around. To truly watch Remus's face. "No, you can't say that; you can't mean it. Please, Sirius. Please. I need you not to." _I need you._ "I just need you to listen, without...without listening for words." _I need you._ "Please. Sirius. Please." It was the first time, Sirius realized, that he was really listening, not to what Remus was saying but how he was saying it, not just how he was saying it but how his hands were clasped tight and pale in his lap, how his eyes were fixed with burning anguish on Sirius's face, how his shoulders sagged and the rest of him tensed and he waited ­ a man awaiting the gallows ­ on every bated breath for the wood to go out beneath him, for the breath to be stolen from his body. It was the first time, Sirius realized, that he was really listening to Remus feel, and not listening to him as a boy, but as one far older and wiser in such ways.

"...your finger," Sirius said softly, "your finger. It's bleeding." There was a bare few inches in between their two armchairs and, as if they were the only two in the room, Sirius leaned over to take Remus hands and keep them away from each other. "I just need you to stop hurting yourself," he said, after that, "I just need you to know how much it hurts me, when you do."

"I'll try to be more careful." It was a real promise. "Sometimes I'm not. I'll try. I don't even know when I'm hurting myself; I don't."

"I," Sirius began, after that, but Dumbledore cut him off.

"I think," he said calmly, "that the rest of this shall be better gone over in private, as my work here has quite obviously been done." Sirius flushed just slightly, looking younger again, but there was sudden understanding in his eyes.

"You're right, Headmaster," he murmured, showing uncharacteristic and suddenly sober deference. "Thank youI guess, forfor wanting to help him."

"I shouldn't have been angry," Remus spoke up quietly. "Because I was. I wasquite."

"My dear boy," Albus Dumbledore replied with a saddened smile, "you had every right to be absolutely livid, and I am so glad you have finally admitted you were. That is, at least, a step. Carry on, now. The both of you." The headmaster noted with some relief that, when the two left, they left shoulder to shoulder and hand in smaller hand, which was quite a good deal better than they had come in. Then, they had been separate, and it had suited neither of them for a single instant.

Later on, when they went off two be alone in the shack, Sirius held Remus and they did not cry, just held each other, and touched each other's hair, and felt their own vulnerability at the napes of their necks, the shudders of their breaths, the long, aching pauses between each, and the comfort pressing their bodies in closer, closer, closer brought.

After Remus had packed, Sirius actually helping, for once doing more than simply trying to, and the snow had begun to fall, the world ­ or at least Sirius's scope of the world ­ seemed to be engulfed in cobwebbed grayness, cruel and unflattering and dull. Any amount of dread he himself felt could not, he knew, measure up to whatever it was Remus was feeling, and so he was quieted, handing off sweaters he had folded.

He had never known balling socks could be so bloody ominous.

"Please don't say you'll miss me," Remus said, snapping the suitcase shut. The brass clasps gleamed, portentous.

"Why in bloody hell not?" Sirius scowled. If they were going to start all this again he'd just have to throw himself out the Astronomy Tower right then and there. 

"Because I don't think I'll be able to bear it, if you do." 

Sirius had to admit, heartbreaking as it was, that was a very good reason for him to keep his mouth shut.

"Oh," he said, not looking up.

"Sorry I have to go," Remus murmured after that, touching Sirius's cheek.

"It isn't your fault," Sirius mumbled.

"It really is," Remus said, "but not in the way you mean it isn't, no."

"I got you some chocolate," Sirius was still mumbling, thrusting forward a box, "so that you wouldn't be hungry, or anything, on the way there."

"Thank you, Sirius."

"You're welcome, Moony."

Remus unsnapped the clasps on the suitcase ­ it sounded so final, he thought inwardly, and cruelly so ­ and put the box of chocolates on top of his two sweaters, his surprisingly neatly balled socks. The box was gold and red, for of course Sirius would see fit to make it reminiscent of Hogwarts in some way or another. There was a little foil-covered card tucked beneath the ribbon that wrapped around it.

"Don't read it 'til later," Sirius said, as if sensing Remus's thoughts. "You don't have to read letters from people if they're right there with you."

"Thank you, Sirius."

"You're welcome, Moony."

"I, I guess I'll"

"I'm going to miss you like hell, Moony, like hell, it's going to be without you." Sirius leaned forward and swept the smaller boy up into his arms, pulling him closer and burying his face against his neck. The world didn't smell right without Remus Lupin there beside him, something wild and something so cultured al at once permeating Sirius's air. The very air he breathed, in fact.

"I told you not to say that, Sirius, pleaseÖ" But it felt good to hear it: good, and devastating.

"I'm sorry. Christ. Moony. Christ. I need you. Christ." 

There was no reply, but it was because Sirius had begun to kiss Remus. Sirius kissed him and kissed him and kissed him again, glad that Lilly had been intelligent enough to keep Peter and James out of the room for this. (The other three would say their goodbyes later, their own worry dwarfed in comparison to Sirius's, and forgotten, no doubt, in desire and hope to cheer him up, no matter how short a time such cheer would last.) Sometimes, he got the very distinct feeling that James was made very uncomfortable by this display, and he didn't like the idea of Peter being witness to something so intimate. Lilly was different; Lilly was a girl and sometimes Sirius wanted to throw her off a cliff or drown her in a bog; but she understood things, and she knew things, and Sirius loved her like a sister and loved her like a lifeline.

After all, she always managed to help him, when no one else could hope to.

They kissed for a while and then Sirius pulled back and ran his fingers through his own hair, scuffing his foot on the ground. 

"You're going to miss your train," he said, quietly. Remus drew in a deep breath, kiss-moist lips closing, Adam's Apple bobbing as he swallowed. All of him straightened, changed; so that he was no longer, as he moved out of the boy's dorm and into the Common Room, the warm creature that thrummed with life in Sirius's arms, but the frail, brittle thing that pained him so. 

When Hagrid led Remus off ­ because Hagrid always was best for comfort and cheer, and knew just how to talk to almost anyone to brighten their eyes just enough ­ Lilly kept one arm wrapped firmly around one of Sirius's, almost as if she were trying to hold him up.

"I can't watch," Sirius whispered.

"You're damn well going to," Lilly hissed back.

"I can't watch him walk away," Sirius replied, lifting his free hand, trying to smile as he waved. Remus did not wave back. Remus was not so casual in such times; did not try to be so casual in such times.

"You're going to bloody have to, and you know it." Lilly gave his arm a squeeze, and they stood there that way for a very, very long time. 

"It's all right, Puppy," Lilly said at last. (Peter had left first, then James, in a grudgingly awkward way that suggested jealousy on some level, jealousy that was not understood or particularly acknowledged.) "It's all right. It's going to be okay."

"Christ," Sirius said, "Christ, he's gone, and here I was thinking I'd never let him get away."

"He's going to come back, you damn fool Puppy," Lilly soothed, in words that should not have been kind, but ultimately were. "And the time will pass, and you'll forget it easy enough when he's come back."

"What if they hurt him?" Sirius found he kept looking, looking to the places where Remus had been, hoping he would suddenly, inexplicably be there again. He didn't like missing something so essential to himself. Saying 'he didn't like' it was by far a horrid understatement. "If they hurt him I'll kill them."

"Every single one of them?"

"Every single one."

"That's a silly plan, Puppy."

"You know I would, Lil."

"I do. Lucky for you they aren't going to hurt him, and you won't have to. Azkaban isn't pleasant this time of year, after all." Sirius closed his eyes, and let out a low, helpless laugh, and Lilly was there, arms outstretched, to pull him against her as he cried.

The chocolates were Muggle, an assortment, and Remus found himself picking out the ones with caramel and the ones with nougat first, savoring each small nub of sweetness. He tried to postpone reading the note that came along with it but found he couldn't, suddenly young, suddenly impatient, and desperate for the company even Sirius's handwriting would bring.

Remus-  
_  
_(And heavens how he loved that familiar scrawl.)__

I'm missing you already.

(Like I'm missing you, Sirius. Of course.)

And I know this because I'm missing you while I'm writing this.  
_  
(Of course you are.)_

I hope you like the chocolates. They're Muggle, and mum said they're the best.

(They're very good. Thank you. Very much.)

_ And if you can write me from there please write me. I'll try to write back, if they'll let you have letters._

(If only. I'd love that. Of course I'll try.)

_ Be safe._

(You, too.)

_ Love,  
_ _Sirius_

It was the 'love' that threw him, that shocked him out of a cocoon of Sirius's handwriting, which was beautifully safe, and into a word where suddenly, his heart was pounding impossibly fast, and he could barely breathe.

(You too, Sirius.)

The Registry was a tall gray building erected in what could only be described as the middle of nowhere, bleak and dour and monolithic. Even the grass barely dared to grow op around it, but grass was a hardy sort, and somehow -- brown and brittle and unwelcoming -- managed it. It seemed, too, as if the Registry building leaked grayness into the air and surrounding scenery, so that when Remus arrived by the scheduled bus (one which had picked up him and two others who were bound fix the same desination in the early hours of the morning. driving through the gray dawn without stop) he could not help the chill that permeated his entire being. It was an eerie place, eerie and cold and cruel.  
  
The other two passengers were as different as any two person could ever be: one scraggly and gay-haired and pale, his eyes like charcoal smudges in his face and his lips twisted into a helpless, rebellious frown, and the other a swarthy young woman with a lofty, challenging smile and a fall of auburn hair She had immediately taken a liking to Remus for some reason or another and fed him sweetmeats because, as she told him, he looked too bloomin' thin for a young lad his age, that he did, and someone had to fatten him up else he'd never make it through the winter

Her name was Nyree and she was a comforting, curvaceous figure, every inch of her feminine in an imposing, busty sort of way. She was hardy as the grass and strong as rock, and smelled friendly, like moss

"Well I s'pose this is our stop," she said with a low chuckle, watching the scraggly man bolt out the open doors as soon as the bus had ground to a halt in front of the building.

"What other stop is there?" Remus asked, voice hushed and grave. It was the first thing he had said all day, other than a few polite thank yous. Suddenly, the food in his stomach made him feel uncomfortable, ill, as the sense of foreboding the place instilled began to flood his system.

"Nothin' for it but t'go in," Nyree returned bravely, and she bustled off easily as if this were just another building, and she ready to do battle with whatever dust bunnies might lurk inside. She reminded Remus, he formulated later, of Aquila Black, for sheer force of her good cheer.

"Name," the pale man at the front desk said.

Why are we so far away from the Ministry, Remus wanted to ask, why is it so gray here, so colorless, so dank?

"Remus J. Lupin," Remus replied softly, holding his suitcase tighter to his chest.

"Age," the pale man said immediately after he got his response, scribbling something down onto a piece of parchment.

Why is it that I've been sent here, Remus wanted to ask, why is this who I am?

What I am.

"Fifteen," Remus replied calmly and easily, and watched as the man wrote that down, too.

"Sent by Albus Dumbledore?" Looking over wireframe glasses, the man in equally drab but pristinely clean robes at last looked down over the bridge of his long nose to survey the specimen that stood before him. It was supercilious; it was condescending; it did not deign to care, that look. Remus firmed himself against it, wishing for some of James's strength, Sirius's charm, Lilly's daring and Peter's unsettling self-possession. He had none of those qualities, though. He was merely Remus. And it was going to have to do.

"Yes," Remus answered politely, "from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

"Right this way, then," the man returned in a clipped and uncaring tone, and started off, quill set aside but parchment held before him. He did not look back to see if Remus was following, his feet clacking curtly and filling the empty hall with the impersonal sound. For a while, Remus kept up after him, moving through archways and doors and up staircases and through side corridors ­ the building was far bigger on the inside than it seemed from the outside, no matter how looming it had seemed even then ­ and was at last stopped before a door in the midst of a great, long stretch of doors. The number hung up upon the one before them was, in cutting, precise handwriting, 152. It was the sort of room that locked from the outside.

"You'll stay here for the night," the man said, slipping the parchment into a folder attached to the front of the door, even as he swung it open ­ every movement designed to get this unsavory business over with as soon as possible. He was not a man who loved his job. "Tomorrow the examination will begin. Lunch will be brought in, in a few hours. We suggest, after eating, that you rest." He looked near to yawning as he ushered Remus in, and stepped out behind him. "If you need anything, there's a bell, but you aren't to leave your room." From the look on his face Remus assumed the man's job was also to make sure no one could leave their room, even if they wanted to.

Without a goodbye, the door clicked shut; a lock was slid into place moments later. Remus was left in the white room, all to himself.

He set his suitcase on the bed, and tested the creaking springs out of a curiosity he felt he should have. He sat down on the bed after that ­ it was the only place he could sit ­ and looked around, as somber and silent as the place itself. There was a bedside table, upon which were a few heavily bound volumes arranged in a neat and untouched stack, and there was a window across from him with a pale curtain drawn over it, filtering in the meek sunlight.

He opened the first of the books after what must have been an hour of simply sitting there, trying to combat the chill of the room itself. It was heavy, rested like a stone in his lap, and the pages were brittle, as if they were unused to being touched. THE HISTORY OF THE LYCANTHROPE, it stated proudly upon the cover, and, beneath that, THE STUDY OF THE NATURE OF THE WEREWOLF. Remus knew before he even began to read that it was going to bore him, or at least make him ill, but he knew that he had to at least try it, or go mad from boredom.

_ The werewolf is,_ the book began, after the author's note, the preface, and the editor's note on the Most Recent Edition, all three of which Remus chose to skip, _a misunderstood creature, more so than any in the Wizarding World. It is a beast of unrivaled strength and bitter anger, passionate as only an animal can be, and to this day the nature of the beast is uncontrolled. But those of a Lycanthropic nature cannot be viewed solely as a wolf, as a creature, as a dangerous beast. In order to better understand the Lycanthrope, it is true that one must first begin to comprehend what the animal is. Equipped with that basic, background knowledge, one can then go on to explore the nature of the man - the Lycanthrope himself._

There is some dispute as to how and where Lycanthropy began, if it can be treated as a thing rather than a state. On the whole, it should simply be considered as one of many evolutionary morphs or - if you are to view the condition from religious perspective - as another creation of God, or the gods

When, then, did the plight of Lycanthropes - for no matter the argument one makes as to the nature of men versus their werewolf state, it is indisputable that the condition is a curse, bringing about misunderstanding, disease, pain, mistrust and, at worst, prejudiced hate and fear - originate? The answer to this question can hardly be concluded with the scant historical evidence presented to any Lycanthropy scholar. For the most part, the history of the werewolf is a tangle of myth and legend, the lines between truth and fantasy blurred. The two have been, in fact - at least up until recent discoveries and advancements - assumed to be interchangable. Thus, the great, cruel beast of folklore and old wives' tales is warped in many minds with the idea of the modern day Lycanthrope when, in reality, such thoughts could not possibly be farther from the truth.

No Lycanthrope would ever choose such a nature. Shortened life spans, prejudicial treatment, and cruel discrimination are only a mere handful of the drawbacks to Lycanthropic lives. Lycanthropes are prone to diseases that have not, as of yet, been found to be curable. Friendships are hard; romantic relationships harder. The path a Lycanthrope takes is not one of a wild and thoughtless beast, but of a lonely man or woman, destined to isolation, be it imposed by society, or by the Lycanthrope him or herself.

There was no hope of Remus putting the book down; he'd barely passed the second page, but, sick in his stomach and desperate to know, he could do nothing but read on.

Later, when lunch came, Remus was nearing the end of chapter three and, haunted by nightmares, which were only the facts of his self, he did not sleep for a moment during the long and tired night.

"How long's it been now?" Sirius had, Lilly noticed, developed a nervous habit of toying with his hair, pushing it out of his eyes, letting it fall back over them, pushing it out again. For a while it had been endearing, but Lilly's patience was easily worn thin.

"A day," she replied, "no doubt he hasn't even gotten to the Registry yet."

"Christ," Sirius said, fidgeting, "you can't be serious." But Lilly was serious, serious enough not to respond to that, and Sirius went back to fidgeting in silence.

"You know, it's really hard to work with you squirming around over there, like that." Lilly peered up over the edge of her book. Perhaps, perhaps, if she distracted Sirius by a fight, he might stop looking as if his entire world was collapsing about his drooping ears. There was, however, no response; save that Sirius fell dejectedly still, hands folded in his laps, his eyes still fixed before him. It was true that he didn't look quite right ­ as if a piece of him were missing, perhaps ­ when Remus was not there, by him, or watching him, or smiling every time Sirius tried to make him laugh. "You need to get out, or do something," Lilly murmured, feeling best always when she was giving advice, though she knew this time her words fell short of useful.

"Get out and do what?" Sirius asked, calmly, though it was a direct challenge of the foolish suggestion.

"I don't know." Lilly shrugged, not looking up. "Something. The longer you sit and think about it the more you're going to be miserable, and the less pleasant everyone's going to find you."

"Fine." Sirius stood. "I'll go for a walk." 

"I'll come with you," Lilly said, without thinking, and then sighed a very bereaved sigh, setting her book down. "Just let me get my cloak. It's cold."

Later, as they trekked across the barren, crunchy frost, dirt hidden beneath the near hoary substance, Lilly stored the images as those of desolation, and knew she was going to be of no help.

"So tell me something," she said.

"Tell you what?"

"Anything you want to. Get your mind off it."

"I'm not going to be able to." Sirius was holding himself as he walked, arms wrapped around his chest. "Forget it, that is. Wherever he is I'm sure he's cold and I can't stand it."

"Stop being so down all the time." Lilly puffed gray clouds of heat out onto the air before her. Her cheeks were turning a ruddy pink; occasionally, she lifted her mittens to rub at them, to keep the circulation going. Something her father had taught her, years ago.

"You don't understand what it's like, Lil; to need somebody you're not supposed to, who keeps getting taken away from you all the time. No matter what in Merlin's name you try to do." 

"He'll come back," Lilly sighed, scowling as her mittened fingers in her hair snickered with static. "He'll come back and then you'll stop worrying again."  
  
"True. But what about the next time? When he leaves again. When he gets taken away, again."

"Well you've just got to figure out if it's worth it," Lilly murmured. During all this time they had not made eye contact; something about the conversation was too adult for them to do anything but stare at their feet.

"'Course it's worth it. Don't be silly. Just wondering if maybe he'll find someone who can"

"Well, well, well." Lucius Malfoy had the most cutting voice of any mere boy Sirius had ever had the misfortune to know, and the tone worked to his advantage, as he could use it, work it, to make anyone's skin crawl. Lilly bristled and Sirius stiffened ­ now was not the time, he thought, for anyone to push him closer to the edge, for he very well might go over. It was comforting, too, to feel the wand he'd tucked into the sleeves of his robes, as if it might have made him feel very much better to blast Lucius Malfoy off the face of the earth, despite the repercussions such actions would bring.

"Don't mess with me, Malfoy." His voice was a low growl, canine, fierce.

"Don't mess with you? But these are free grounds." Lucius examined a fingernail, coolly, easily, voice unruffled. He was getting better at this, certainly. "I would think you'd be out here with your other repulsive mudbloodÖfriend, but it seems you've exchanged one unpleasant specimen for another. What would Potter think, to see you two here?"

"I said, don't mess with me, Malfoy. It's not the right day. It's not the right time."

"Sirius," Lilly said, touching his arm, but Sirius shook her off.

"Really," Lucius went on, smirking bemusedly, "is that any way to treat a lady? Though I doubt you have any capacity for chivalry, a great, stupid lug like you." It was hard, very hard, not to see stars. Luckily, Lilly saw what was going to happen before it could, and grabbed Sirius's arm, clutching it hard.

"Another time, maybe," Lilly hissed, "when you can't get yourself expelled."

"It'd be worth it, if I wiped that bloody smile off his sorry little face," Sirius ground out in reply, but he relaxed, slowly, letting go of his wand.

"I'd like to see you try," Lucius murmured, and gave a soft, confident laugh. "I suppose you'll find a way to make as many chances as are possible. Practice makes perfect, you know." He turned on his heel, crunching the frost beneath his boots, and walked off, straight and proud and revoltingly triumphant.

"That was the last thing I needed," Sirius muttered, face flushed. "Thanks, Lil, this was a brilliant idea."

"Then spend your time waiting for Remus making a plan," Lilly suggested, trying to smile. "A Wipe That Bloody Smile Off His Sorry Little Face plan."

"You know," Sirius murmured, "I just might, at that."

Remus had always helplessly loved his privacy, cultivated it, and kept it close to himself in a strange, hungry sort of desperation, because so much of himself was a secret he was too afraid to tell. The idea that anyone other than his father would be able to see him change was a painful one and, throughout the physical checkup, the day of the full moon, it was as if something was gnawing its way out of his stomach from the inside.

"Age?"

"Fifteen."

"Height?"

"Five feet, five inches."

"Weight?"

"One hundred and seventeen pounds."

"Underweight." The quill scratched something extra. "Place bitten?"

"Stomach."

"Is that the scar?"

"Yes."

"Werewolf's bite: lower stomach, just above the left hipbone, and a little to the right. Do you know the name of the wolf that bit you?"

"Dalila Lupin."

"Related to you?"

"My mother."

"Bitten by mother. What's that scar, right there?"

"I did that. To myself."

"Are all the other scars the same?"

"Yes. No. Not that one."

"How was it acquired?"

"I was bitten by a dog."

"Dog bite on neck. How long have you been a werewolf?"

"Since I was seven."

"Describe the change."

"It hurts. I'm tired the day before, and the day after. I miss school for it. I don't remember anything that happens, when I'm aÖ"

"When you're in wolf form."

"Yes."

"Have you ever hurt anyone?"

"Ino."

"Who knows about your Lycanthropy?"

"My father. Albus Dumbledore. Madam Pomfrey ­ Poppy Pomfrey ­ the head nurse at Hogwarts."

"That's all?"

"That's all."

"Right this way, please."

"I wonder where he is now." Sirius sprawled himself out over Remus's bed, the smell of him still lingering there, and took all the comfort he could in that scent, sighing deeply. He hadn't slept recently; there were dark circles under his eyes, and he hardly looked like himself.

"Just think," Lilly muttered to herself, though watching him fondly, "just think, that when he comes back to you and sees you looking like some sort of Halloween decoration, he's going to be absolutely terrified, and run directly in the opposite direction." Sirius snorted.

"Thanks. You do know how to cheer a bloke up, don't you."

Night fell.

Remus changed into the wolf on a sterile white floor and it screamed its rage, the force of denial ripping through it. It was kept contained. It hated the white, the blinding white, and tore into itself more than it ever had before, teeth and claws, angry, furious. Where were the others? Where was the forest? Why was it that it had again been denied? It could not voice the questions, and took them out upon its own flesh and fur, blind and desperate for the copper taste of blood. Its tongue lolled from its mouth; it was a beast; it was a beast and it was a trapped one, at that; there was no worse a fate in the world, it thought, if that white, white hot rage in its mind could be called thought. Selfishness was the mark of the wolf, overwhelming, devouring selfishness.

Throughout the night two tireless men in official robes took notes, while the wolf threw itself again and again against stinging magical barriers, and begged the moon for something other than loss, loss, and ever again loss.

Outside the window the moon was pregnant, full. Sirius could not sleep; naturally, Sirius could not sleep. His head rested on Sirius's pillow, on the windowsill.

He was watching the dappled flank of the moon in the darkening sky, watching the clouds pass over it and knowing that the wolf was miserable, that the wolf was hurting the boy, and that he was not there to stop it.

_ You can't save everyone, Sirius Black,_ he told himself.

Too bad he couldn't even save the one person who mattered most.

The Center of Werewolf Support Services was, while not being a particularly enjoyable place to spend time at, was a place that at least attempted to be hospitable, as hospitable as it could manage to be. He was asked questions by a round looking female with water blue eyes, in a room with a too-soft bed and a too-heavy comforter.

"And what's your name?" she asked him, leaning back in a rocking chair, while Remus sat in a smaller one, across from her. It was a chair that was trying too hard to be comfortable.

"Lupin. Uhm. Remus Lupin."

"How old are you?" She smiled at him from over the edge of her scroll.   
  
"Fifteen years."

"When's your birthday?" 

"January." 

"So three months from now, you're going to turn sixteen."

"Mm. Yes." Remus was getting the feeling that this woman wasn't very bright, no matter how awful it was to think that. She continued to scrawl something on the parchment before her, then smiled very brightly, and very emptily, and went on in her line of questioning.

"Right," she said cheerily, "right. You've been Lycanthropic for how long?"

"Since I was seven." Now Remus felt as if he were stuck in some sort of ironically repetitive time loop, going about and about in circles and never getting anywhere.

"Tell me a little bit about your mother," the woman said, and flashed a brilliant smile.

"She's dead," Remus replied, remotely, "she was the werewolf that bit me." The woman visibly blanched.

"Oh," she said after a few moments, swallowing thickly. "Oh. I see. Well." It took her a little while to recuperate, but she did so with brave determination. "Now, then, who do you live with?"

"My father," Remus informed her.

"And where?"

"A flat. In Canterbury."

"And I hear you go to Hogwarts," the woman said suddenly, brightening, realizing that she had not, in fact, exhausted all possible outlets for bubbly conversation. She had quite obviously been taught that information was a byproduct of unfailing, smothering kindness and therefore did not know why to do, when all her efforts slammed headfirst into a barricade and were smashed into smithereens. 

"I do," Remus said.

"How do you like it there, then?" Her smile had returned, like a faithful dog.

"It's very nice," Remus answered truthfully. "I like it very much."

"Does anyone there know about?" To say the word now, she had also obviously been told, was a breach of trust and of the formally established friendship between herself and her 'patient.' While she invariably meant well, not saying the word was what made Remus's skin crawl.

"About my Lycanthropy? Only Headmaster Dumbledore, and Madam Pomfrey, at the Infirmary." Remus toyed absently with the edge of his shirtsleeve. It was too warm in the room, while at the Registry, it had been far too cold.

"No friends, then; very wise of you." Remus's face didn't change even a centimeter in expression. "Er. Right. Well. How are you, at your classes?"

"Doing well, I think," he said, carefully. "You can ask Headmaster Dumbledore about that; he'd know better than I do."

"Oh." The woman went back to her parchment. It was the name barrier, Remus concluded at that point; that she knew his name, but to him, she was just a wandering, nameless, fumbling creature, was the stumbling block for this entire, failing conversation. Well, that, and the fact that Remus could not bring himself to speak to strangers, much less to smile at them, especially when they seemed so falsely, vapidly friendly. "So; sixteen," she was quite obviously talking to herself, "almost sixteen, excuse me; five foot five and a hundred seventeen pounds, dear me; mother, deceased, living with your father" She trailed off, and then positively beamed in desperation. "Hobbies!" she said, triumphantly, "do you have any, then?"

"I read," Remus offered. 

"Oh, that _is_ nice," the woman replied, relaxing again in her chair. "What sorts of books?"

"All sorts."

"All sorts?"

"Well, anything I can find to read, I read," Remus murmured and, then, after a pause, went on. "I go to the library, a lot; in Hogwarts, andand during summer vacation." The woman blinked rapidly, and said nothing. "It's quiet," Remus ventured, "and I can study. I like that." It seemed as if the woman didn't know whether to take note of this, or to simply ignore it, and she sat there, frozen, torn in indecision.

"All right, well" she said at last, scrawling down a few more words onto the parchment, "I'll be back with you to ask more questions later, all right, dearie?"

"All right." Remus nodded, once, and wondered if his eerie politeness was distressing the woman in any way, as she seemed rather more ruffled than need be. Perhaps she was unused to children with such lack of emotion, he figured, and bowed hi head just slightly so that she would not be spooked by the calm lack of emotion in his eyes.

"And in a little while there'll be a man in to check up on you," she murmured helplessly, as if she could not understand why he took no comfort from her convivial cheer. "He's going to make sure you're in prime health."

"Yes," Remus replied, guardedly, though he was trying to smile. If only to make her feel slightly better. 

"Er," she said, and then stood very quickly. "If you're hungry or anything - and really, you should eat more, such a small thing you are! - then do ring the bell, right there by the bedside, and I'll come in to see how you're faring." Remus couldn't bring himself to reply with another 'yes' or 'all right,' both short and deadpan and completely unhelpful, so he simply nodded, sighing in relief as the door clicked shut behind the poor, beleaguered madam.

Remus sat there for a while, and listened to the silence that crept through the room, and drew his knees up to his chest, and waited. After a little more than an hour and a half a respectable man in plain robes entered the room after knocking lightly. He had wire-rimmed glasses, and his hair was a dusty sort of read, threaded with gray. 

"Good afternoon, there," he said, and offered up a kind smile. Remus focused his eyes on the man, judging him in the blink of an eye, and then looked down for a moment, swallowing, remembering how it was speaking operated.

"Good afternoon," he murmured.

"And how are we today?"

"All right. How are you?" It was almost comfortable, the formula by which they were speaking.

"Quite good, I must say; quite good. I'm here to examine you, d'you know."  
  
"Ah."

"See if everything's in ship shape." People who said ship shape were always trying to prove how good natured they were. Remus hid a sigh behind one hand. This man was just like the woman, and probably worse, because at first glance he had seemed far, far better. 

"Oh." The man was only momentary phased.

"Lie down, then," he said carefully, gesturing to the bed, and Remus stood, sitting cautiously on the edge. "All I'm going to do is check up on your scars, your physical health, and see if there's anything we here at the Support Center can do for you, to facilitate the change; to make it less hard on you." Remus nodded. "It's best also to know," the wizard went on, "how your heart is holding up against the strain of the monthly changes, whether or not there are any a-rhythms, or any warning signs for future troubles that might now be seen to." He motioned to Remus sweater with his wand, and Remus moved his fingers to the hem, tugging it off. The lighter shirt beneath came off next, and the wizard knelt down beside his bed, tucking his wand into the side of his belt. He inspected each scar with the occasional tap of his wand and noticeable murmur, almost as if his hands were not there for safety or for wellbeing, but for mapping Remus out. 

It was horrid, having hands other than Sirius's on him, but Remus kept himself still and thought of other things, tried to think of other things, placing his mind as Somewhere Else as he could manage it. The time passed as slowly as it could have, with the occasional question, or commentary.

"This is the Bite, is it not?"

"Yes."

"On his stomach; obviously, the wolf went for the underbelly first."

Silence.

"And this, this isn't self-inflicted, it can't possibly be."

"Which?"

"The one on the neck."

"No. A dog bite."

"Has a scar from a dog bite on his neck, right above the collar bone. Looks to be fairly recent, I believe."

And more silence.

"These are fairly new."

"They're from this past full moon."

"When you were being supervised at the registry?"

"Yes."

"They're job was to observe you. We might have something to reduce the scarring of these cuts; certainly, to ease the pain in the bruises."

"Thank you."

"I'll see to that as soon as possible."

And silence again, only this time, there were no more questions, a few "hm"s and "oh"s and one "dear me" before the man pulled back, raking his fingers through his short hair. 

"The assessment is quite done," he informed Remus, tugging out his wand and a blank piece of parchment, tied into a roll. "I'm simply going to place down the information here, for our information, and I believe a few more tests shall be conducted; then, it would seem, you will be quite free to go. The other tests are simply to see if any Potions can be concocted to ease your particular form of Lycanthropy. Oh, and, of course - you are also to attend a talk with one of the Staff. Nothing too trying; it's merely for him or her to explain a few basic concepts about Lycanthropy, some of which few Lycanthropes themselves even know."

"Thank you very much."

"Please," the wizard said, but he looked incredibly chuffed, "don't for a second mention it." He tapped the scroll with the tip of his wand and it unfurled; and, moments later, something dark, inky, shimmering leapt from the wand and onto the face of the parchment. It was like writing, while at the same time being like a picture; perhaps, the most effective way of documenting Remus's condition, visual and yet clinical. "And there we have it. Lunch should be along shortly."

And the door clicked shut behind the disappearance of the man, swathed inside his comfortably clean robes. Remus tugged his shirt back on, and then folded his sweater. It was far too hot to wear it now. In the stagnant silence of the room, Remus Lupin drew his legs once more up to his chest, wrapped his arms around them, and rested his forehead on his knees.

He did not cry.


	17. Chapter Fifteen: La Duexieme Chanson de ...

This chapter marks the one year anniversary not of my starting this fic, but of my falling in love with all things Sirius and Remus. I feel so very nostalgic. Now leave me reviews.

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Chapter XV: La Deuxieme Chanson de l'Ombre

In the darkness of the large room was silence, silence feeding off the darkness, the darkness, in turn, feeding off the silence. It smelled like shed snakeskin, the air tasting of some violent but unseen green color.

Voldemort didn't entirely trust his werewolf, for not only was the creature strong, but it was smart, too. The insanity didn't matter much, as insanity was only a variable in the midst of it all, a factor that touched upon both thought and action but came from a different place entirely. If anything, it made the creature something more to worry about ­ or, would have, if Voldemort ever worried about anything. The point was, the beast was unregistered, the beast was efficient, and the beast was driven by some inner turmoil that would destroy it very effectively in the end, thus leaving Voldemort with practically no disposal work. All in all, it was a very good deal, and Voldemort was certainly not complaining.

He kept the werewolf around when he was traveling, on the occasion, as the werewolf traveled light and moved fast and understood that, while on the move, it was necessary to be more than silent: it was necessary to, if possible, make negative noise, just as a beast of prey might make, during the hunt.

Luckily, while Voldemort did not trust his werewolf, his werewolf never trusted the places they went to, and kept alert, away, defensive. Voldemort had learned from a very early age that to keep one's enemy or even one's supposed allies on the defensive was to keep them from ever thinking about the offensive, and thus defeated any plans before they were begun. 

And that was why he was moving so quickly; striking so fast.

It was with a hiss and a brittle snapping of the air, through the silence came a whisper, soft and sleek.

"And what is it that you wish to see today?" Out of the darkness the bent old man appeared; did not, of course, appear, but he seemed to, as if he had been one with the shadows, and had only just then chosen to take form. Of all those that Voldemort associated himself with, this man was the only one who did not call him master.

"All things of Godric's Hollow," Voldemort replied easily, watching in cool dispassion as the werewolf shrank back from the man's shriveled form, watching, alert, on edge. "All things of Godric's Hollow, and the Wizards within."

"They will destroy you," the man murmured evenly. His sightless eyes did not blink, gray and filmy and the whites like clotted milk. He had been very, very blind for a very, very long time.

"So I must kill them now."

"They will destroy you. An heir of Godric's Hollow, a creature unforeseen, will destroy you." That was the most terribly obnoxious habit the old man had, Voldemort thought to himself, displeased. He never really gave you something to go by, just the vaguest outline of what doom and gloom was to come. Ah, well; he had been making his own future since he was Tom Riddle, and it barely even mattered to him, now, the fineries of prophecy. He did. He was. He would do. He would always be. And it was that simple to him.

"Teiresias," Voldemort sighed, ever patient, ever brittle in his politeness, "is there anything more you can tell me, or shall I simply save myself the time and go to kill Henry Potter at Godric's Hollow?"

There was silence in the room, through Achille's blood, pounding like a heartbeat at the backs of Voldemort's eyes.

"If you had ever read good literature," Teiresias said smoothly, "you wouldn't even bother." The old man folded his hands before him, and took a step backwards, where the shadows claimed him like some sort of delicacy. Voldemort shook his head.

"You keep taking me to such unpleasant places," Achille muttered, puffing breath out between pursed lips, "but it seems to get us nowhere. Cold old men and their cold old words."

"My thoughts precisely," Voldemort replied, pushing the door open and sweeping out into the corridor. "But Septimus was wise enough to invite the man here and now, at least, I know my suspicions are the truth. Godric's Hollow. Will the legacy of that house never cease to haunt me?" He smiled, a glittering, jade smile. "Well, yes, it will, at that," he murmured, dark hair falling forward, swathing his face in shadow. "As to what you said, it was a incredibly stupid, and I do think such thoughts had better be kept to yourself."

"You smell like a snake," the werewolf returned calmly, walking with an easy gait alongside of Voldemort's long, hurried strides.  
  
"You smell like a dog," Voldemort replied, crisply. "And your job, as I recall, is certainly not to talk."

"I don't have a job." Achille shoved his hands in his pockets. "I'm coming along for, as they say, the ride." 

"Oh, excellent." They rounded the corner and Achille opened the door to the main sitting room in the Malfoy mansion, where Septimus sat, hands folded, one brow lifted regally above the other. He looked to Voldemort like a king of nothing and to Achille an emperor of paneling and large windows and glittering candlesticks. The chandelier above them winked with pale light. Everything was still a shadow; it was Teiresias's effect on things.

"I hope the meeting proved fruitful," Septimus said, speaking first.

"It merely reassured me that I am correct to follow through on my original plan," Voldemort returned dryly. "Which means, Septimus, that you are to kill Henry Potter, tonight."

"It shall be done."

"Of course it shall be." Voldemort was tightlipped. "You needn't kill the wife, though if she puts up any trouble, you have my permission to." And then he smiled, the slowest of cruel smiles, teeth catching the pale light like paler pearls. "It's high time Albus Dumbledore and his castle in the clouds saw fit to acknowledge us as a threat. It's high time the idiots working under him stop sitting on their prim hands."

"If it is all out in the open at last," Septimus Malfoy murmured, bright-eyed, "then it will only be a matter of days."

"Hardly." Voldemort tilted his head to the side. "It will be a good many years. Which is why," and he began to pull on white gloves, "which is why I intend to have us start, now. If you require any help, Mssr. Baudouin will be delighted to provide you with all assistance possible. I, have other things to do." He nodded, once; Septimus rose, and bowed slightly, at the waist. 

"You underestimate yourself, my Lord." Septimus's voice was light, but edged with harshness.

"I think not," Voldemort said, and was gone. He never left with a flashy show of light and sparks; just a rippling in the air, a green rippling threaded with red, and then he was gone, a dip in time, a surreality, a threat as great as day and as terrible as night. Septimus let out the breath he, and all of Voldemort's followers, always held when around him, and rang for a house elf to fetch him his cloak.

"I take it we aren't allowed to make a mess of things." Achille leaned against the doorframe, fingering the dark mahogany wood, polished to a reflective shine.

"Unfortunately, no," Septimus said quietly. "It will give me great satisfaction, however, to kill the man. He was particularly unsavory at Hogwarts and he has continued to be for the last two decades." The house elf scurried in, and the cloak settled about Septimus's shoulders. "Shall we?" He sniffed, lightly, as condescending as possible.

"You think I smell like a dog, too." The bones in Achille's hair clacked. It was his way of laughing.

And then, they were gone into the night.

  
_  
Through the dark place, like a dark tunnel. Through the dark place like roots all around it, a great tree, a stumbling world, the clouds laboring in the sky. The moon. Slowly beginning to wane. Full only two days ago, now, now pale, now helpless in its cycle. He felt like the moon, sometimes; just like it._

And up to a house with the lights all turned off.

The windows blind in its face, sightless, unknowing. Something terrible was going to happen and in the darkness the house did not know.

He smelled dog.

He smelled dog thick and heavy and hungry.

He smelled dog-like madness, thick upon the thick air, only it was more feral than dog, more dangerous, too. And then there was something refined, something metallic, a wand pulled from robes, the rustle of it as the robes parted, fell back into place. Something very fine. Something very expensive.

Something very fine and very expensive, and something canine and cruel, were going to do something terrible here, and the house would not notice until the lights went on and blinked out, and it was over and done with.  
  
His dreams were a funny place, mumbling and portentous and horrid. They reminded him of his school days. He always woke with a stomach ache.

"Hector."

Sometimes, in his dreams, people called his name; softly, loudly, an in between, a tenderness, a hate, a despair. Sometimes, he heard Arabella, the love with which she used to speak with him, the scorn she had last employed. There was Mundungus, sometimes, too, always the same; a gentle, careful tone, a slight, refined hunger, an insecurity, a hesitance. (Funny he'd never seen those before. It was as if Mundungus thought he might at any moment shatter into pieces and be lost on the howling wind.) Always, there was Damon, behind it all, throughout it all. He loved Damon. He loved Damon. He just didn't love Damon as he loved Mundungus.

"Hector."

And then there was the voice which was real, which pulled through his dreams, where the man was screaming out and the wife was sobbing, and everything was a blinding flash of white light, of pain, of sudden, infinite death.

"Hector, there's someone at the door." Damon's voice woke him. He felt like a poem; he felt that he might drown.

"...time is it...?" Hector's voice sounded mangled, harsh, tired, even to his own ears.

"Three forty. There's someone at the door, Hector, calling your name." His eyes opened; there was no light, and that was a comfort to him, at least. He squinted, blinked, had to close his eyes again because it hurt to hold them open. He opened them again after a few seconds had passed, wide open, to acquaint them with the position. Then, he swung himself out of bed, feet hitting the cold wood beneath. 

"Cold," he hissed, running his fingers through his hair and, without waiting for Damon's reply, he hurried down the stairs.

"Hector!" It was Mundungus, pounding at the door, because Hector would always remember that voice, no matter what, even in this state of blurry half-sleep. He was aware of Damon coming up behind him, and his brow furrowed, heart suddenly pounding. He undid the lock and the bolt, and opened the door.

"It's three bloody forty five, Mundungus Fletcher, what in Heaven's name are you doing here?"

"We need your help." He took in a deep breath, his face pale in the wavering moonlight. It was like blood stains, the clouds passing over the sky.   
  
"No," Hector said simply, "you don't. And certainly not now." He moved to close the door.

"Hector, we do." Mundungus's eyes closed for a moment. "Henry's been killed. Henry Potter. You used to tutor him in bloody Divination and don't you dare turn your back on us now."

Silence.

"He said, you don't, and not now," Damon said suddenly, firmly, moving to slam the door shut.

"Merlin," Hector whispered, and Damon stopped, fingers on the edge of the door, at the splintering wood. He fumbled. 

"Hector," he said.

"I don't want to sound like Arabella." Mundungus's voice sounded strained. "I don't want to hurt you like Arabella, I don't want to force you to be something you're not, but this, this is what you are. We need you, we need you, we've never needed you more. If only we'd been able to see, Hector. If only we'd been able to know."

"Please, Mundungus, leave now." Resignation, in Hector's eyes, in his voice.  
  
"I can't," Mundungus said, "Hector, I can't." Hector swallowed hard.

"You're going to take me away," he whispered, "and I'm going to let you, aren't I?"

"Don't," Damon tried, but Mundungus fixed him with the firmest of looks, and he was forced by the power behind it into silence. Mundungus turned his eyes back to Hector, took his face in his hands, and held him that way, as if he were a little child.

"We do things we are scared to do. We do things that hurt us. We do them when the times demand that cowardice is not an option, that cowardice can never be an option." Mundungus swallowed. His throat was rough, his words ragged. He was tired; he had come a long way. In this light his stubbornness was quite apparent. He would not take no for an answer, not now, not here, not ever again. His words hit home, rang true. "I am terrified, Hector. I am terrified that taking one step forwards or backwards will hurt the people I love, but I am trying because we can do no more than that; we, as men, can do no more than try. And as I see it - from where I stand - what you're doing isn't trying. It isn't even trying to try. Weaker men, lesser men, have gone further than you and I won't see you sit here and rot because you're paralyzed with some idiot's fear. Get your clothes on. Pack your things. We need you. Everyone needs you; everyone. Don't do it for yourself if you don't think you deserve it, but do it for them. For Henry Potter, who was murdered in his bed without warning. For Arabella, who cried herself silly at me after never having gotten through to you. For me, because I'm terrified, just as you are."

"I think you've said enough," Damon whispered.

"Are you on their side now, too?" Hector asked, turning tired, dulled eyes to Damon's face.

"I won't have you staying," Damon returned.

"Thank you," Mundungus said. "Speed is necessary."

"I'll have him ready before dawn." Damon took Hector by the sleeve and Mundungus dropped his hands, guiding him out of the doorway, into the main room. "Because I respect you," Damon whispered against his ear, as he led him up the stairs, "and because I want to continue to do so." 

Hector made a lost sound, and could do naught else but follow.

The words rolled over Achille's tongue as they left the house, fleeing into the night; as he was left alone by the edge of the woods, knowing that Voldemort would find him again, when he needed him, and that he could do as he pleased, until then.

"Avada Kedavra." Softly, it was terrifying, dangerous, a secret that could easily move like poison into a king's ear, a secret that could easily kill. 

"Avada Kedavra!" Loudly, it was death, sudden and quick, the bite of a cobra, the sting of a scorpion, the squeeze of a python, the breath lost, the breath never regained.

Achille loved it because it was so gloriously simple, so easy to speak, so tender, so affectionate. He wanted to be on speaking terms with death, like that. He wanted to be that close by its side. He wanted to have her on his arm, slipping her arm through his, elbow to elbow and laughter bouncing against laughter.

But he was not a wizard, and he had no wand.

He inspected his dirty fingernails, sitting at the roots of a tree, and listening to the silence of the night, the movements of barn owls, the songs of the bats. He listened to earthworms burrow into the dirt. He listened to insects flick lazily past his ear. He killed a few. Somewhere, people were already panicking over this one insignificant and yet terribly important death, one that meant the beginning and the end and a whole lot of other things Achille was barely a part of. He had been set free; he was in this to kill. And maybe to find that woman, that beautiful woman, who had ripped out his stomach beneath the full, pregnant moon. He was hungry, Achille was. He wanted to fuck her. Maybe, he wanted to kill her; maybe, he just wanted to whisper those two words against the tender lobe of her ear, over and over and over again while she was pinned, subservient, beneath him. Constantly, he dreamed of this. Desperately, he longed for it.

He knew, however, that she was dead.

The dirt beneath his fingers was moist, supple, and fringed with the occasional fuzz of tree-moss. Flowery, soft, it was a pleasant feel. It grounded him.

"Avada Kedavra, Avada..." It would have made a lovely song, one that she might have sung, one she probably did. Her big gold eyes like two big bright coins in the heart shape of her face. Those pretty lips. The way she moved, on the other side of the river, between the gravestones, with her hips just the right amount of wide and her breasts bare to him. She had held out her hands, her arms, wide, and he had crossed the river for her. He had waded through the wet and she had taken him into her arms, in the dusk before darkness.

The death on the face of the man he did not know was an unsightly one, all frozen in sudden, sleepy fear. His eyes had been wide and his jaw had near snapped with the brittleness of his shock. His wife had started screaming and then he had clamped a hand over her mouth, looking at her green eyes, while Septimus left the way he had come. He had run after; she had started to scream again; he had followed Septimus Malfoy, listening to the woman's screams. They were funny, near comical, how loud and how crass they were. Just like fear. Comical, as all that.

"Avada...Avada, Avada, Kedavra..." And it nearly rhymed, too; that was also pleasant.

That two simple words could form the syllables of death itself was a pleasing, almost comforting thought.

Achille wanted to go back to France.

That two simple words like that could get that woman screaming so loud it hurt his ears was funny, was funny funny funny.

Achille wanted to go back to France, the little circle of gravestones. He wanted to find her name on one of them, he wanted to crack the stone, he wanted to dig her bones up and chew on them and listen to them crack. It had been such a long time since he had been in France, the smell of his home, his good, funny, French home, where the earth was sweet.

But everything was incredibly different now, so it didn't matter.

"Avada." The first word, he liked far better, far, far better, because it rolled off the lolling of the tongue. It made him pant just a little. It made him want to run.

"Kedavra." He pushed himself up off the ground and threw his head back and screamed, and then burrowed into the arms of the forest, running, barefoot, over the rocky ground. For now, he was free, Achille Baudouin in a foreign land. When Voldemort would come for him he would be fine again, calm again, wildness scratching at the surface with long, sharp claws.

Whenever Remus returned to Hogwarts he found that he could at last truly breathe again in the welcoming face of the place, craggy, old, filled with the music of home. It wasn't like him to wax poetic on much but he did love just returning to Hogwarts (loved staying there even more) and, as Hagrid rowed him back across the lake in the small skiff, and the water lapped at the edge of it, he sighed, long and low and deep, with utter relief.

"Glad to 'ave you back, he'll be," Hagrid said cheerfully, taking a pause in his puffing at the rows, and giving Remus a knowing smile. They didn't have to say who 'he' was. "And it's right great, isn't it, to come 'ome again." And really, that was what Hogwarts was to Remus: home, in every sense of the world. After all, it was where Sirius was.

"I'm glad to be back," Remus admitted, very quietly, into his scarf. Unlike most people, Hagrid didn't egg him on to be louder, and took whatever he said by weighing how important it was, not how loud it had been said.

It was late at night when they returned and somehow, as Hagrid left him inside with his bags to make his way alone through the empty corridors, Remus didn't know whether he wanted anyone to be up and waiting for him. How could they be, in any case, as they didn't know when he'd be coming home. Well, not to the exact hour, at least. It would have been nice to simply slip himself into Sirius's arms and Sirius's bed so that the other would find him in the morning, and he could sleep the night through, without nightmares, without disturbances, without waking to the lonely cold or suffocating heat.

The Common Room was empty when Remus entered it, empty and filled with numbing, dead silence. He trudged up the steps to the boys' dormitory, shifting his bags to slip the door open, and shut, without making a sound. Without allowing the floorboards to creak, he set his suitcases down beside his bed, fumbled with the clasps on his school cloak, letting it drop as neatly as possible atop the bigger suitcase. He toed off his boots and flexed the muscles in the arch of his feet, sighing, once, as he breathed in the smells. Sirius, in the corners, on the curtains, sliding along the windowpanes. James, upon the arms of chairs and along the bindings of books and in the circle of glinting glasses upon the top of his dresser. Lilly, verdant and willful, in the stray orange hairs and the forgotten school tie and the neatly paired shoes by her bed. Peter, lingering upon the floor and circling the bedposts and perched upon the bedside table.

Home.

There was nothing nicer in all the world than coming home; than being able to come home.

Without wanting to bother with socks or pants, the removal thereof, Remus simply pulled back the curtain to his bed, convincing himself he wanted nothing more than to get a good night's rest, the first in ages. When he saw his bed was far from empty, he froze. Sirius's blue eyes winked out at him from the darkness.

"You've come home." Sirius's voice was slow, sleepy, and filled with relief.

"You're sleeping in my bed," Remus replied carefully, holding the curtain open yet, running his fingers through his own hair in wonder.

"Come to sleep with me," Sirius whispered, levering himself up on one elbow. "I haven't gotten a good night's sleep in ages, without you here."  
  
"And I have, without me, here?" Sirius winced, brushing his tousled locks back out of his eyes. He rested one arm on a bent knee, holding himself up with his free hand.

"Come to bed, Remus."

"I've missed you, Sirius."

"Stop talking and let me hold you."

"What if you aren't real?"

"I'm real, I promise you I'm real, let me hold you."

"But what if you can't?"

"Stop asking questions. Stop talking. Come and see." Remus knelt down instinctively onto the bed, the mattress giving way beneath his knees, and he let the curtain go behind him, bathing them both in shadow. He knew where Sirius was by smell and he crawled his way across the suddenly too-big bed to get to his side, to the sudden comfort of his arms.

Sirius pulled him close immediately with an intake of breath and Remus let out simultaneously a deep, deep sigh, the solid realness of Sirius's arms and chest and even his scent. Hands ran through hair and arms settled finally around shoulders, around a waist, the two of them tumbling backwards onto the bed.

"I thought you were going to come back earlier. I was worried, I didn't know where you were."

"Thank you for the chocolates, and the note. I loved them."

"And Lilly kept telling me I was off my rocker but I didn't give a ruddy damn, I missed you and there was really nothing else to it."

"I don't ever want to go away to a place like that again, Sirius, I can't bear it."

"You won't. Don't worry. You won't." Sirius nuzzled against Remus's cheek and Remus leaned himself into the touch. This way, they had twisted, Remus listening to Sirius's heartbeat, pounding within his chest. Sirius's arms had settled themselves around Remus quite nicely, both hands on the ledge above his hip. "They didn't treat you all right?"

"They did, they did, it just wasn'tÖ" He was quiet for a bit, feeling Sirius's hair slip through his fingers as he stroked it. "It just wasn't here, that's all; it just wasn't here."

"Remus," Sirius murmured, and Remus could hear him, feel him smile. 

"Yes?"

"You've got to be the most amazing person on the planet." Remus blushed, and buried his face beneath Sirius's chin.

"Oh, be quiet," he muttered, but Sirius knew the smaller boy was intensely pleased, in quite an embarrassed way.

"I can never be quiet, you know that," Sirius murmured fondly, nuzzling against his hair. "I wouldn't be me if I ever tried." As if to spite what he had just said they both lapsed into silence, contemplative, peaceful, occasionally moving their fingers against the other just to reassure themselves of their tangibility. "D'you even know how much I've missed you?" Sirius asked at last, quietly interrupting the long stretch of silence.

"I can fathom a guess," Remus replied, just as quiet. "If you missed me nearly half as much as I missed you."

"Oh," Sirius whispered, "oh, I do believe I did, Moony. I think I still miss you now, even though you're right here again." He waited for Remus to tell him he'd really lost his mind, heart thudding a little more quickly in his chest.

"I know what you mean," Remus said, gently, nearly startling the other boy. "I think I know exactly what you mean."

"But," and here Sirius fumbled for words, "but I think, wherever you go, and wherever I go, we're always going to come back to this. Right? We can alwayswe can always put our arms around each other again, like this, and have it be all right?" It was a question that begged for reassurance, for affection, for affirmation of what they were too young yet, too afraid yet, to speak of. Sirius was deeply aware of where his fingers touched the ledge formed by Remus's hip, deeply aware of the way Remus breathed into that spot, ribs expanding, contracting, expanding again, with the air that flowed into his lungs. He listened to the sounds of those breaths make their way onto Remus's lips, low and shallow and slowed by something, no doubt thought, no doubt deep feeling.

"What else would we go back to?" Remus finally answered, though with a question. It was rhetorical and somehow, better than any 'of course' or even a plain 'yes' would have been. It made Sirius stop to think, to fully realize that Remus had been thinking the same thing, and now they both knew that it was the truth, not just a desire.

"Well," Sirius said suddenly, "well I'm not letting you leave again, anyway, no matter what Dumbledore says, and that's final."

"Good," Remus whispered, and then, with the creep of slow relief, they both began to laugh, very softly, so as not to wake anyone else. It was laughter that was near hysterical with gladness, hysterical and quiet and shaking them both through and through.

"Don't leave again."

"If it were my choice..." Sirius buried his face like a puppy in Remus's neck.

"Because I don't think I could handle Lilly's form of comfort for another second of my life, that's all, and there's no one else who even begins to understand."

"I know. I'll do my best, Sirius, I'll do my best."

"Moony," Sirius said, and it wasn't a question, just a caress of the syllables, of the name. It made Remus's spine shiver.

"Sirius," Remus returned, because Padfoot was a nickname different than Moony, and the three syllables of the bigger boy's real name were easier for Remus to pour emotion into. He didn't know why.

And then, they kissed, Sirius tilting Remus's chin up and leaning his face down and Remus parting his lips just slightly, instinctively. Sirius drew the kiss out, tugging lightly at Remus's lower lip, and then kissed him again, full on the lips, but chaste, and young. He kissed the corner of Remus's mouth, tasting strange, sterile places but Remus beneath that. He kissed the taste away.

His lips moved down the line of Remus's neck, over the bobbing of his Adam's Apple, and nuzzled at the scent that threatened to overpower Moony's own, pushing it aside, evaporating it away. Beneath, Remus smelled like tree-bark and winesap apples and autumn, and rain in autumn, and sunlight in autumn, and crackling leaves beneath. Or, he didn't smell a thing like that, and those were just memories encased in scent. He did smell like the wolf, but also bookish, like the boy. It was intoxicating, to erase the unfamiliar smells that filmed over the familiar one, unfamiliar smells of unfamiliar places, unfamiliar people, unfamiliar spells.

The full moon when they had been apart had been horrid, Padfoot at Sirius's back whining, begging and horribly alone. Sirius was sure it had been no better for Remus; was sure that he'd find new scars, soon enough, all along the boy's body. ( Soon enough, but not then. They were small children, here, crying in each other's arms because they'd been lost in a world that was too big for them, at last finding each other, at last, at last returning home. )

Sirius pressed his lips once to the scar at Remus's neck, pressing into it, reminding himself of that strange, animal pact they had made not even too long ago, though it seemed strangely distant, as if done in a foreign land. He smelled himself, there, and that was disconcerting.

"They asked about that scar, in particular," Remus babbled thoughtlessly, mired in his own pleasure, simple and childish though it was. "Because it's on my neck and I couldn't possibly have given it to myself. I said, 'a dog gave it to me.'" Sirius breathed hotly against it and Remus let out a low sound, like a dry, tearless sob. "And they told me," Remus went on, "that it was wise not to tell any friends, what I am ­ what I am ­ because they don't think people ever understand, and I, I didn't think so, either." Sirius's lips sought out the rumble of the words, only half-listening to them as he kissed at the sounds, seeking to devour them whole.

"Sirius," Remus said, after that, losing too much of his coherency to speak properly. He was still rambling, and he knew it, but it didn't register properly enough for him to simply be quiet. "Sirius, Sirius, Sirius, Sirius." 

And Sirius's lips mouthed against his skin, 'you're home, you've come home, you're home,' the pattern repeated against that one, pale scar, bunched skin against the smooth standing out, the skin around it impossible sensitive.

Outside in the sky, the cold making everything incredibly clear, the moon was waning, shadow by shadow creeping across its pale face. Like a ghost, it was turning in the sky, marking the passing of time, the aging of its creatures playing across the chest of the earth beneath. The trees swayed and strained in the howling of the wind, an eerie gray bathed in the pale moonlight. Things were black upon gray upon gray-white upon white, in the haunting darkness of the silent night. No leaves stirred on the bare branches, no small creatures scurried upon the hard, dry ground, and no feet crunched brittle twigs beneath them. There was no one about, all animals deep within their slumber, glad for the blanket of winter's rest drawn up around them.

It seemed the only two people in the world awake, with eyes wide open, were Sirius and Remus, in the midst of the warm bed, a tangle of two and yet one in each other's no longer lonely arms.

The day began brightly, with a beautiful, eager sun and warmth, even throughout the cold air. Laughter filled them, all of them, James looking slyly from Sirius to Remus and then to Sirius again, gladness in his gaze. Lilly herself was all smiles, only pausing to needle James once in a period of five hours. Even Peter was laughing, like a young child rather than some precocious and off-putting creature.

They all of them ate lunch together, making sure Remus ate twice as much as even Sirius, the drawn, gray lines of his face worrying to all of them. There was more laughter than it seemed was necessary but relief like their's tended to exaggerate, and none of them truly cared. A game of chess was played between Sirius and James and then Remus took Sirius's place, to try and beat the winner, when Remus grew aware of eyes on them, and looked up. The others followed his gaze, blinking in confusion when they saw Dumbledore standing there.

"I am afraid, Mr. Potter, that I must speak to you in private," he murmured, a calm detachment in his voice, something sad in his pale blue eyes.

"If this is about the slugs in Malfoy's bed," James said immediately, eyes growing wide, "then I swear, it was all Sirius's fault, I never"

"Oi!" Sirius protested, giving him a withering look.

"No, no, no," the headmaster assured them, eyes glinting behind his glasses, "I assure you, it's not about the slugs in Mr. Malfoy's bed, as I had no previous knowledge of that, really, before now." He fixed James with a half-stern, half-saddened look. "What I must talk to you about, I must talk to you about, in private. Will you come with me, to my office?" James gulped, trying to remember any of the pranks he'd been dared into doing recently, and coming up without any. After all, Sirius hadn't been in the mood for that, since Remus was away, and so nothing particularly terrible had been schemed up and put into action for a good while, now. 

"All right, sir," James said, pulling away from Lilly, who was trying not to look worried, and trotting up to Dumbledore's side.  
  
"Do come this way," Albus Dumbledore said softly, nodding once to the others, and leading James off. They walked in silence until they reached the entrance to his office; murmuring a hushed "fizzing whizbee," he broke the silence, but only for a moment. Again, Dumbledore led the way up the stairs, with James trudging along behind, and into the small room, gesturing towards a seat. 

"I believe you should sit down," he told James carefully, folding his arms before him. Still wide-eyed, James could do nothing but obey, and sank down into the leather armchair with a creak of fabric and a heavy lump in his stomach.

"Yes, sir," he murmured, chastened, "but I can't think of what it is I've done wrong, really, so I have to tell you right now that I haven't done anything, anything at all!"  
  
"I am fully assured of your innocence, Mr. Potter." Again, Dumbledore smiled that suddenly devastating smile, shaking his white head slightly. "The point being, I have not taken you here to speak of such light matters."

"No?" James's first reaction was to be incredibly relieved; then, as he thought about it, realized he probably shouldn't have been relieved at all. "What, uhm, what, then, did you take me here, to speak of?"

"Ah," Dumbledore said, and then he, too, sat, as if he were suddenly too weary to even stand. "This is not an easy topic to begin, Mr. Potter; so you must forgive me." James swallowed, and nodded. 

"Well," he said, finally, "tell me, then? Andget it over with, I suppose?" He fixed blue eyes on Dumbledore's own, not sure, suddenly, if he did want to know, at that.

"Two nights ago," Dumbledore began, licking his lips, sitting up a little straighter, "two nights ago, there was an unforeseen event ­ an attack, if you will ­ on a perfectly innocent place, at Godric's Hollow." James's eyes widened further, fingers clenching into fists.

"Godric's Hollow, but that's where I" Dumbledore shook his head, holding a hand up to silence him.

"Do let me go on," he said, and James steeled himself, settling back down. Something in his chest pounded against sudden constriction. "There is a rising force of darkness that we have not yet wished to combat, because we have not yet wished to acknowledge," Dumbledore continued, taking a different route to his destination, now. "But we have learned in these past few days that this course is not an option, for this darkness is rising, and it has begun to strike."

"What does Godric's Hollow have to do with any of this?" James demanded. "What about the attack?"

"I am coming to that, Mr. Potter." Dumbledore drew in a deep breath, and seemed to grow a good few feet taller. James shrunk back, feeling young, and small. "These two nights ago, your father, Henry Potter, was the target ­ though why, we do not know ­ of this first attack." 

"My father." James's face had gone white. "Where is he, is he all right? What happened?"

"It was one of the Unforgivables," Dumbledore went on quietly, "the gravest of them all. You have my sorrow, and the condolences of the entire staff." James was silent. "No doubt, you would wish to be with your mother, at this time, as she would wish to be with you. If there is anything that we can do for you, you have only to tell us, and we shall do our best." Still, James did not speak. "And, we assure you, Mr. Potter, that proper steps are being taken to find the culprits and to administer to them proper justice."

"My dad was killed. You're telling me my dad was killed."

"I am afraid that is exactly what I am telling you, Mr. Potter."

"And what am I supposed to say to that?" James's voice sounded as if it were being filtered through tin. His eyes were fixed on the ceiling above, bright, glistening, wet. 

"There is not much one can say to such news." Dumbledore was grave, and there was something about his presence that was wonderfully comforting to James's numbed heart. It made him feel. "If you wish for me to get any of the others, anyone at all, to share this with you, I can do so."

"Sirius," James answered immediately, "I want Sirius here." Because he'd known Sirius for practically all his life, and he didn't know yet if he could allow himself to cry as he was about to in front of Lilly.

When Sirius entered the room, ushered there in questioned quiet, James turned bleary, numbed eyes to him and he knew what needed be done without knowing what happened. When James clutched at him, arms around his shoulders, and began to cry, soft sobs, hot tears, all of it dignified, Sirius held him close, and gave Dumbledore a questioning look, defiant, angry, scared.

"S'my dad," James whispered, voice cracking, into Sirius's neck. "S'my dad, he's dead, my dad's dead." Sirius's eyes widened. Moments later, his arms grew tighter around James's waist. He was unable to say anything, anything at all, to help or to comfort.

"He was cursed," Dumbledore said from across the room, "by an unknown wizard the night before last. Mrs. Potter is fine, but Mr. Potter was killed on the spot. There was nothing that could be done; if there had been, believe me, we would have done it." It didn't even occur to them then, to ask who it was 'we' were. "And believe me now, that we will do something about this tragedy, as quickly as is possible."

"I'll kill them," James had begun to whisper into Sirius's collar, "whoever they are I'll kill them, they won't stand a bloody chance!"

"Mr. Potter," Dumbledore warned, as Sirius tried to soothe him, "do not say such careless things."

"They killed my dad!" James screamed, pulling back, cheeks streaked with tears. "They killed my dad and I'm going to kill them!"

"Calm down, before you make any promises," was all Dumbledore said to that, finding for a moment that he was not truly strong enough to look at this boy, in his grief.

"S'all right, James," Sirius was murmuring, against James's temple, "it's going to be all right. We'll pay 'em back, don't worry. Of course we will. Of course we will." James's tears had turned into sniffles, now, like a little child's, and Sirius's was wiping the tear streaks from his cheeks with the edge of his tie. The Gryffindor colors were splotched darker in some places, with the salty wet. The action was affectionate, tender; Dumbledore found himself aching for his childhood once more.

"There will be a meeting of the Ministry," Dumbledore spoke with calming finality. "Something shall be done about this; such madness, such a killing, shall not go unpunished. In the meantime, Mr. Potter, you are to stay with your mother for the funeral, and you may return to Hogwarts when you so wish to. As I stated before, anything that needs be done shall be, for your sake. Do not do anything rash, for the men who have done what they did to your father will stop at nothing to get what it is they want, and it would be best to punish them efficiently, severely, swiftly ­ without their inflicting any further damage. Is that understood?"

"Don't give him any bloody lectures," Sirius growled, eyes narrowing. "He understands you well enough." Dumbledore looked taken aback, but Sirius hardly cared, turning his attention to James once more.

"You'll find, Mr. Potter, that your bags are packed. Your mother wishes for you to come to her, right away." The headmaster sounded oddly chastened. "I am sorry, terribly sorry, that this could not have been prevented."

"My dad's dead," James said, dully, thickly. "There's nothing can be said about it."

The painful thing about that, Dumbledore thought to himself, as he watched the two boys leave, one leaning heavily on the other, was that James Potter was one hundred percent right.

And the saddest thing was that Albus Dumbledore knew without a doubt that it had all only just begun.

Lilly held him close and kissed his forehead, her movements graceful, and wise. 

"I'm sorry," she said.

"I don't know what to think of that phrase," James murmured, arms wrapping around her waist. "I just don't anymore."

"We're not going to be able to make it better," she replied evenly, with sad green eyes, "we're not able to fix it. So we tell you, we're sorry. Because we hurt that you're hurting. Because we love you."

"And you...?"

"Because I love you." She leaned down, and kissed him, and he tangled his fingers in her hair. "We won't be able to make it right," she said, when she'd pulled away, her eyes darting about, suddenly bright, "but we're going to do all that we can to see that, that the people who did this, will pay. Maybe not soon, but you never know. Sirius and Remus and Peter and I. We're going to ­ not make it right, but ­ make it even. Even if Dumbledore says thinking that way is wrong."

"It just reminds me," James said quietly, "it just reminds me that I'm only a bloody child."

"And I'm also a bloody child, and every great witch or wizard in the world once was scared, and small." Lilly threaded her fingers through tousled black hair, ruffling it. "You're going to be one of the best, James Potter; people are going to know your name forever."

"I thought, my dad" James swallowed thickly. "Thought my dad was that way, too."

"Bastards," Lilly hissed between clenched teeth, "the bastards that did this..."

"I will kill them," James said softly. "Merlin, I don't even know who they are, and here I am, swearing to kill them! What if I'm no better than they are?"

"A thousand times, James Potter. A thousand times better, and don't you forget it." Lilly licked her lips. "We all have such faith in you. You're the best of us. Everyone knows it. The smartest but not just the smartest, there's something, something in you ­ I know Dumbledore knows it, the way he looks at you sometimes. Like you're not just a little boy. Like you're going to be the greatest thing the world's never seen the like of before."

"I've lost my dad," James replied evenly, "all I want is to hide behind my mum and never have to face the world again, or anyone in it."

"It will be all right," Lilly promised him, "one day, James. One day, this is all going to be all right."

"It's hard to keep on. It's hard to keep being me when maybe I might not be who I am, at all. My mum. I can't bear to face my mum. What in Merlin's name do I say to my mum?"

"You say, I'm sorry." Lilly ran the backs of her knuckles along the side of James's cheek, and shook her head, watching him with a deep, deep affection.

"I love you too, Lilly." He lifted a hand and took hers by the wrist, kissing her palm a moment later. It was funny, the terrible thrill she took from that, the rivers of grief and the shocks of fiery happiness, all twined into one creature, knotting up the very center of her stomach. She nodded, and felt him kiss the place where palm joined to wrist, the slight hardening of flesh at the first spot, the slight softening at the other. "You have soft wrists, and you can be a right bint, but somehow you always know what to say."

"As do you, James Potter." Lilly smiled shyly, face delicate in a way James had never seen it be before. "Only you just don't know it yet." She kissed his lips lightly, tousled his hair once more, and took a step back. "And you'd best be going, or you'll be late, you know."

"I know."

"You're all packed up?" Lilly inspected a fingernail, suddenly unable to keep from crying. James patted his suitcase on the floor, beside him.

"To the very last sock," he whispered. "I'm scared."

"S'going to be all right, James. You're going to be all right."

"I'm scared of what it's going to be like. You know. Getting to the 'all right.'" 

"Aren't we all." Lilly took a few steps forward and embraced him. "Your all right is going to be something special to see. I feel kind of, kind of honored to be there. To see it."

"Thanks, Lilly."

"I'm so sorry about your dad." James nodded, once, and picked up his suitcase. 

"Wish you could come with me."

"Some places I can't go. Some things I can't help you with. I'll be here for you, when you come back." James looked pale.

"I feel," he said, "I feel like when I turn my back, everything's going to disappear."

And with that he squared his shoulders, turning his back on Lilly, his bed, the warm safety of Hogwarts, and left to bury his father, to scatter the ashes of childhood to the curling wind at Godric's Hollow.

James was gone for three and a half weeks. In that time Lilly was sullen, silent, and while Sirius tried to be of help he eventually gave up, too terrified of her barbed words. The only one who could talk to her was, surprisingly, Peter, though she spent most of her time alone, studying, or looking in general quite dangerous. No one blamed her. 

Sirius spent most of his time tight by Remus's side and Remus was only too happy that this was the situation, comforting Sirius by staying close by, always within touching distance. A pall had settled over them, something distinctly chilling about the loss of life, the loss of life so close to home. The days passed with dreary antipathy and the nights were spent in each other's arms, Sirius finding solace against Remus's body, Remus only too glad to give it. He had lost a parent, himself, at so young an age that this did not come as so much of a shock to him, as it did to the others. While he was sorry, as grieved as any of them, it was not something that seemed so unexpected; he was used to deaths, was wise in their ways, and was not stunned into a shell, as so many of the others were.

"I just hope he's doing all right," Sirius confided against Remus's shoulder, late one night when neither of them could sleep.

"Of course he's doing all right," Remus assured him, stroking his hair.

"Well, it is James, after all," Sirius said, but he didn't sound so sure, and Remus couldn't think of anything else to say to back up his original statement.

A few nights later and it was the full moon.

Headmaster Dumbledore gave Sirius permission to take the day off from classes and study, so that he could sit with Remus in the infirmary, so that they could keep each other distracted from their own personal torments. They talked the day through, with long silences in between separate conversations where they simply held hands, and watched the light change, dancing through the filmy curtains of the infirmary. It was a nice day, a nice day at last, it seemed, for so many of the previous ones had been gray and dismal and gloomy. Such weather had been the last thing troubled spirits needed. It was going to be just them tonight, Padfoot and the wolf, with no Wormtail, and no Prongs. The knowledge was sobering, and as they ate their dinner ­ chowder and bread and butter, comforting food for the winter ­ they were quiet about it, neither one of them wishing to talk much. Still, though, the silences between them were incredibly comfortable ones, not awkward, not jarring. There was simply no necessity to stumble about for speech, and therefore, no desire to place up unnecessary words between them like barriers. They had known each other for too long, they understood each other too deeply, for such a lack of true intimacy.

Besides, Remus was never one to waste words and, around Remus, Sirius was able to adopt the useful and mature habit. Around everyone else, unfortunately, he was still as opinionated and raucous as ever.

They made their way out into the darkness quietly and stuck close together against the whip and sting of the frigid cold wind. Sirius kept one arm around Remus's shoulders, holding him in close against his body, using his own body to protect the smaller one that was nestled up against him.

They used the stick to freeze the massive and deadly arms of the Willow, and crawled through the dirt and darkness, feeling impossibly small, neither of them able to speak, now, as they had been for so long in cultivated silence. It seemed as if words would not have been enough for either of them.

It was the first time Sirius would see Remus change; it would been in monochrome, through Padfoot's eyes, but it would be stored and remembered, and the two of them were scared of what it would, exactly, mean.

When the sun dipped deeply beneath the horizon line and the last, violent purple of day was spilled like blood into the onslaught of darkness, Padfoot growled with the tension in the room, backing into a corner out of fear. Something snapped against his muzzle, and he watched as the boy cried out, again, again, and fell to the floor, curling in on himself in a fetal position. The air crackled. The boy was still screaming; then, there was silence, as the boy had bit his lip, hard enough to draw blood, in order to keep quiet. Padfoot whined, tried to take a step forward, but couldn't bring himself to.

Hands changed first, flesh morphing into claws and fur. Up the wrists it traveled; and it had begun at the feet, clutching at the ankles, dragging itself up the calves, the shins. Convulsion after convulsion wracked the now-inhuman form as it lay there, unable to do anything. Padfoot smelled blood on the air, and pain, and misery. He whined again, helpless, as the fur burst through skin and the body changed, bones breaking, reforming, sinews and muscles stretching to fit against the new structure.

Now, there were no boy cries; now, there were wolf howls, and Padfoot recognized the scent in the air as one he had missed the past full moon, when the cycle was due to come full circle, and didn't.

With a low, rough bark, Padfoot pushed himself forward and nuzzled in against the wolf's neck, coaxing it into some recognizable form of consciousness. The wolf whimpered, and snarled, and then recognized the creature by the overwhelming and sudden onset of smell. 

They tussled for a bit, and then drew apart, panting, listening with cocked ears to the eerie quiet of the room. Distracted by nothing at all, Padfoot turned his back on the wolf, sniffing the corners of the place, lifting his leg to mark a particular spot where his own scent had faded.

It was then, during that moment of weakness, ironic simply because it was a showing of dominance, too, that the wolf let out a low, plaintive howl, which seemed to double as laughter. It bolted down the stairs, Padfoot startled, but right on its tail, and threw itself, once, at the splintering door.

Werewolf strength itself was double the amount of force needed to break the door down. The wolf was out into the clear, treeless night in an instant. The sharper shards of wood from the door managed to get through its thick hide, and buried deep into its skin. It howled, up at the moon bright and unfiltered through clouds or the splay of leaves, and Padfoot froze behind it, close to staring. 

They were atop the hill; below them, Hogsmeade, stretched out, demarcated by the occasional twinkling light. There was the scent of people, people living their lives, doing their jobs, sleeping and laughing and playing and sitting still and making love, upon the crisp air.

And the wolf went wild.

Barking and howling and near screaming with delight it began to move, so sudden Padfoot could barely scramble into action fast enough to bound after it. The two of them went down the hill, wind whistling past their perked ears, muscles at the ready, teeth bared. The wolf was on the hunt, for something fresh, for the flesh it was meant to tear into with its deadly teeth. Padfoot himself was putting up chase, to keep the wolf from its purpose. The dog's tongue lolled out of the side of his mouth, and his breath came in pants. 

The wolf was big, and the wolf was deadly, and the wolf was overpoweringly strong. And, what was most important: the wolf was too damn fast.

The hill was behind them, now, and they were on the border of Hogsmeade, moving through uncut grass, stones digging into their paw pads. On the air, now, was the scent of something living, breathing, male; there was the sound of him, moving across a street a little ways away, crunching gravel beneath his feet. He puffed his breath out, and the wolf could feel it condense upon the air, could smell it, could nearly taste it. The man was wearing mittens but had stuffed his hands into his pockets, anyway. It would be an easy kill, and it would be perfect, to start the night. The wolf began to growl, tensed, focused on the presence all too far away.

It was then that Padfoot pounced, barking loudly in warning. The man heard the sound, and felt a shiver run down his back. It was high time, he decided, that he got back inside, and he hurried quickly over cobblestone to rap on the door of his mother's home, who scolded him as if he were still a child, before welcoming him into the warm, glowing house. (Because it was late, didn't he know, and waking people up at this hour of the night when they'd been off gallivanting Merlin only knew where before this was simply unheard of, unheard of, and there's some lamb heating by the fire just now, if he was hungry for it, which gods only knew he wouldn't be, probably ate something terrible on the way home.)

At the loss of its prey the wolf found itself angrier than it had been in a long time, so that the fight between black dog and its rust-colored opponent lasted far longer than was usual, and covered also a greater amount of ground. Padfoot barked, over and over in warning, causing Hogsmeade children to wake, crying, in their beds. Their mothers soothed them, peering out their windows, and seeing only the shadows fighting. Still, shivers ran down their spines when they heard the howls, the matching barks, and they thought of the weathered house, the sounds that often came from within, atop the hill. They spent the night watching over their children in worry.

After what seemed like hours of fighting the two finally fell still, muzzles stained just barely with blood. Tongues hanging from opened mouths, they caught their breath, ribs expanding and contracting as they panted for desperately needed air. 

They regarded each other with caution; then, Padfoot limped over to the wolf's side, and nuzzled against his neck, gently, against the strange knotting of skin and fur that was the slightest outline of that one particular scar, the one that marked the wolf as the reluctant submissive. The wolf allowed the touch, and bowed its head, too tired to protest this reminder of who had triumphed over whom.

Padfoot herded the wolf back into the shack with grim, pale eyes glittering in the full moonlight.

The rest of the night he stood, alert, guarding the open door, while the wolf sat before him, and whined out in despair.

It was late at night when Hector and Mundungus arrived at Hogwarts, a dark night, and chill. Hector felt naked returning to this place, his new wand tucked safely into the pocket of his equally new cloak. Mundungus had seen fit to buy him everything he would need; they had gone shopping in Diagon Alley and Hector had gotten the distinct impression that he had become a little child again, running after his father through the crowded walkways, excited for the first day of school at Hogwarts. Mundungus had even decided to buy him a gazing crystal in a Divination supply shop, a new one, it seemed, for once upon a time, as they said, Hector had known them all. The shop had made shivers run up at down Hector's spine because everywhere he turned he could see only the future, in the mirrors, in the crystals, in the cups of plain, undisturbed water or murky tea. Mundungus had picked out one of the finest crystals the entire shop had to offer and had quieted Hector's protests with one simple, strict look ­ again, so deeply like Hector's own father might have given him, had he wanted a gold cauldron rather than a simple pewter one, foolish child. Sheepish, Hector had kept quiet, forgetting that his hair was lightly threaded with gray and scuffing his foot as Mundungus took care of things for him.

Afterwards, they piled onto a train to Hogwarts, not the express, as Hector was sure Mundungus wanted all the time there could be to talk, before they arrived on school grounds. It must have been painfully apparent how deep his dejection was, but some people, it seemed, simply never forgot the workings of an old friend's mind and face. There was to be, obviously, no protesting.

Mundungus swung their suitcases up onto the luggage racks above two empty seats, nestled away in their own private compartment, then slid the door shut, and drew the curtain down upon its window. Privacy, filtered with late morning sunlight, encased, entombed, the little square of space.

"So," Mundungus said, as he sat, facing Hector, hands limp in his lap. 

"So," Hector replied, refusing stubbornly to give Mundungus a single inch.

"Look. I know you're not happy about any of this."

"Whatever gave you that impression?"

"But I think you're a damn stubborn git, you know, and I can say this as it's true. If anyone knows, then I know."

"Thank you, Mundungus, that's a great help." Hector fidgeted for a moment, and then turned his pale eyes to stare out the window, sunlight playing over his face. Mundungus watched him for a while, then got out of his own seat and slipped in to sit by Hector's side, with the same, unselfconscious grace he'd had since puberty had passed.

"What you don't get is that I'm at least trying to be," he told Hector sadly, with a shake of his head. "That I'm doing this, taking you back, for your own good. Because I know you, and I know you wouldn't be able to live with yourself if you woke up one day and found we'd all died, and you never even tried to stop it." Hector winced; Mundungus could feel something inside of the slighter man crumple. "Well, you know I'm right," he added, scowling down at his own hands.

"Failing without trying is significantly easier on the spirit than failing because you simply were not enough," Hector said suddenly. Mundungus looked up, startled, then pained.

"Yes, isn't it. But the Hector I love would never have said such things, and the Hector I love must've been scared by something dreadful to have to say such things now."

"And what if he was?"

"Was that why you left us, then? Was that why you went away, without even saying goodbye?"

"I knew that if I tried to tell you goodbye you'd keep me from going, when I'd already made up my mind"

"Because it wasn't the right path to take, you knew it then and you know it now!"

"and so I left without telling either of you to save us all the trouble. I would have left sooner rather than later. Do you think it didn't hurt to go?" Tired eyes met tired eyes. Mundungus licked his lips.

"Do you think it didn't hurt to be left behind?" Mundungus asked, stunning Hector into shamed silence.

"I'm sorry. I couldn't bear the fate I might face. Of losing either of you, not by my own choice." Hector clenched his hands into fists, then relaxed them. A moment later he tilted his head back, staring up at the moldings circling about the edge of the ceiling, trying to keep his eyes focused, trying to keep them from getting oddly blurry. "It was easier to walk away. And before you start on me, yes, I know, easier wasn't the right path, but I was terrified, for reasons I could hardly explain. Seeing the future, seeing what it might hold ­ and only might, mind you, as things change every second, but the terror never fades ­ well, the least it did was give me a blasted headache for nights on end. The worstah. The worst drove me away. As far away as it could, as you know." 

"If you'd have told us" Mundungus began, but Hector shook his head, cutting him off.  
  
"If I'd have told you," he said quietly, gently, "then Arabella would have yelled about why she just didn't see how I could be such a bloody weak-willed creature and you would have shook your head, feeling sorry for us both, yet still not quite able to understand. Because Dumbledore didn't ask of either of you what he asked of me ­ yes, yes, our burdens were equally great, but I was not strong enough, not ever strong enough, to bear mine alone." 

"I didn't know you thought of yourself as alone." Mundungus watched Hector pick nervously at his fingernail. "I always thought you'd know you had us."

"And if I came crying to one of you two every night for as long as I managed to bear what I was doing I'd have dragged you both down with me. I kept it to myself because I did not want either of you to suffer on my account."

"Hector, if you come crying to me or laughing to me I want you to know it hardly matters, so long as it's me you're coming to." Hector nearly cut himself with his own nails; he dropped trembling hands to his sides and closed his eyes, drawing in a deep, steadying breath.

"Talk is easy enough. Actions are entirely different. Emotions are entirely different, again, from the other two."

"I would have done anything," Mundungus swore, voice barely audible, so Hector had to strain to hear it. "I would have done anything to keep you happy, to keep you from leaving."

"And what if you failed?" They were both silent, regarding each other levelly. 

"At least I would have tried," Mundungus replied at last, muscles tightening in his jaw.

"You always were stronger, kinder, better than I," Hector returned with a fond misery in his voice that made Mundungus, grown man though he was, want to cry.

"I was not. Just wanted to keep the people I loved safe, that's all."

"And you could manage it, whereas I could only see future pain coming; could likewise do nothing to stop it."

"Sometimes, I just don't recognize you," Mundungus murmured, face looking drawn and tired and mapped with sudden weary lines. "Sometimes, I just don't know if I ever really knew what it was I was looking at, when I looked at you, to begin with."

"You did." For a while, the silence seemed alive, so powerful and so thick. "It's just I never grew up, that's all, and you and Arabella did. So I let you down."

"The only way you let us down was by letting the thought of letting us down keep you from confiding in us." Mundungus reached over, touching Hector's shoulder with his broad palm and callused fingers. "If you'd have just come to us, just told us, then we would have done something to help you."

"It was my gift," Hector said suddenly, "my gift and my curse and the only way you could have helped me was by coddling me. I wasn't strong enough to do things on my own but the last thing I needed was the humiliation of being babied by anything other than my own stupid actions!" Mundungus shook his head in defeat, in disappointment, dropping his hand back to his side and shying away from the man he sat next to.

"The things you say," he murmured, at that, "how can you possibly truly mean them?"

"I'm coming back with you, aren't I? So of all things, you won't have to feel guilty about not being enough. Because you were, the two of you were everything; I was the one who was lacking. I'm trying to make you see that." Dust caught the sunlight that streamed in brightly through the window from the noonday sun, flickered brightly, and then passed on, the vividly short cycle replenishing itself. It was funny, Mundungus thought, because the air in the car felt unnaturally still; how, then, was the dust moving? Some unknown force of nature, it seemed, that said each little speck of dust had no right to more than a breathless few seconds of glorious sunshine. It was unbearably depressing.

"You're coming back with me because I didn't give you any choice, because no one gave you any choice."

"I could have put up far more of a fight, and you know it," Hector pointed out quietly, and the statement was enough to silence Mundungus for a moment of thought.

"So why didn't you put up a fight?"

"Because everyone's got to grow up at some point," Hector murmured sadly, "and terrifying as it is, you're right. All those things you said to me were right." Again, he had to keep his half-unfocused eyes on the ceiling above him, to keep from breaking apart into a thousand terrible pieces. "I don't know," he continued, speaking as if to himself, "I don't know. Sometimes you don't have a choice, as to what you're going to be. Sometimes, you have to listen to the people who love you. Sometimes selfishness masquerades as something else entirely but when you get right down to it it's selfishness, all the same."

"Like I said," Mundungus soothed, taking one of Hector's hands in his own, his eyes bright, too bright, "like I said, you always were the best of us, even if you didn't believe it. Even if you still don't. Why do you think we loved you so much?"

"I'm sorry," Hector said, "I'm sorry that I left."

"Maybe we didn't understand you just as you didn't understand us."

"It would seem so." Hector's lips quirked up into a rueful smile. "Or maybe we just knew each other far too well to see what was happening to us."

"I just hate thinking it's never going to be the same again." Mundungus rubbed his thumb over the back of Hector's hand absently, noting how smooth still the man's skin was, how like the hand of so long ago that he had held during nightmares or cold nights. 

"Once in a while I think, it's all my fault." Hector let Mundungus hold his hand that way, watching the movements of the longer, thicker fingers, inspecting each small twist, each stillness, too. "But then I know that no matter what happened between all of us we were going to have to grow up sometime, and better sooner than later; in these times, as Dumbledore said, it is best to be prepared."

"Maybe you did us all a favor." The train sped forward over the line of the tracks, the sound outside louder than the mouth of a waterfall, but within, there was only Mundungus's voice, slipping over the silence. "Maybe you helped us, and we'll never know. All I can say is, you're coming back, and it's home, isn't it, 'cause you and 'Bella were the only home I had, from the start." At that, Mundungus's hand tightened over Hector's and Hector returned that tightness, his eyes closing and his breath hitching in his throat. "It hurts to see you in a different home," Mundungus admitted, after that, "but it makes me so happy, too, to know that you're all right, that someone's taking care of you, even if it isn't me, anymore." 

"Mundungus," Hector began, but the other shook his head, and cut him off.

"Don't say it, Hector. It hurts a little more to hear it, I think."

"Mundungus," and here, Hector was ignoring his friend completely, because he hated nothing more than someone assuming they knew what he was going to say, "Mundungus, if you think the fact that I love him makes it so I love you any less, you or 'Bella, then I don't know what you've become, either." Mundungus, changeless and powerful and filled with the passion, the stubbornness, of his youth, looked stoic and even more unchanged when the words passed Hector's lips. Stoic, yes, and sad, too, Hector noted, with a moment's shock. The hand that held his own felt more real, suddenly, more solid, as if it were the only thing keeping Hector grounded, attached to this world, while being the only thing that could hold him up, and stop him from drowning. Mundungus's eyes, too, were sad, like a spurned puppy that didn't know which way to turn for its next meal of scraps. "Mundungus?" Hector asked, the confusion in his voice devastating and young.

"It can't be your fault that you never knew me, if I never knew me," Mundungus replied, his voice sounding labored, strained. "Even if you were the best of us three at that sort of thing."

"I wasn't," Hector protested, "you were."

"Don't be silly," Mundungus scoffed, "don't be a fool."

"Even more of a fool, you mean."

"Well, yes." Mundungus hazarded a smile. "Well, yes, that." Hector's expression was softened and encouraging, as if he were asking Mundungus to smile again, please, just for him, and so Mundungus attempted to once more. This time, he succeeded. The look of relief on Hector's face was reward enough.

"Thank you," Hector murmured, his voice wry, but there was truth in that statement, and Mundungus knew it. Maybe they still knew each other, as well as they ever had. Maybe they knew each other yet better.

"Your problem," Mundungus said, into the silence that followed, "is that you've always thanked people too much for them to tolerate you."

"Your problem," Hector evenly returned, with laughter in his eyes, "is that you've spent too much time looking for ways to say 'You're welcome,' and then refusing to ever bloody say it."

In the small confines of the car the two grown men began to laugh like little boys, childish in the gentle sunlight.

_ The boy was sitting up against a wall, right smack in the middle of the empty hallway, his books scattered out about him and his eyes bleary, red. A trickle of blood ran from his nose over his upper lip, shocking red against his pale skin. _

Mundungus stopped, frowned, and turned on his heel to make his way over to the tiny figure, tucked up into himself as if he wished only to disappear. He was crying, small, shuddering, soundless sobs. Mundungus knelt down by him, peered into his scared little face, the structure of it sharp and gaunt, and offered out a smile like anyone else would have held out a hand. 

"Hey," Mundungus Fletcher said. The smaller boy, trapped like a pinned butterfly, stopped his crying to stare up into the biggest, kindest eyes he'd ever seen.

"Hello," the smaller boy said finally, in an accent Mundungus couldn't put his finger on.

"You're bleeding," Mundungus pointed out, jabbing a finger in the vague direction of the other boy's nose. At that sudden movement, the small figure jerked back in fright, nearly slamming his head against the wall. "Oh," Mundungus murmured, "uhm, sorry. Didn't mean to startle you. But, your nose. 'S bleeding, you know."

"Oh," the smaller boy replied, the wariness in his eyes fading slightly.

"Did someone hit you?"

"No. I fell." The indignation, the assertion, with which the small boy spoke revealed his words to be a lie but Mundungus was impressed with this sudden, aggressive bravery. He approved of this boy's nature, he decided.

"Gotcha," Mundungus said, flashed a grin. An expression like a rope, tossed out to a man drowning, surrounded by miles and miles of lightless sea. "Let me fix it up for you? Or you won't look very - presentable." His mother overused that word like anything but he figured it was quite appropriate in this situation.

"All right," the smaller boy said, then, carefully, "thank you. How are you going to fix it?" But Mundungus had already pulled out his wand, pointing it directly at the tip of that too-pointy nose, and before the smaller boy could even be frightened, the spell had been cast.

"Cessanguino!" Mundungus dared the nose back into ship-shape, dared the blood to dry up, dared it to stay there, marring the smaller boy's pale face. Big, owlish eyes blinked down, crossing, trying to see the job Mundungus had done, and then fixed on Mundungus's face once my, rapt and amazed.

"Wow," the smaller boy said. "Where'd you learn to do that?"

"Some boys on my block back home kept trying to beat me up," Mundungus said, proudly, puffing up for a moment like a pigeon, before he deflated. "They kinda won, a lot. So, I had to learn how to fix myself up, didn't I? And there you have it. Comes in handy." Mundungus was grinning again, and the smaller boy was staring at the smile like it was his only hope in all the world, the sun in a land with no memory, even, of light. To anyone watching they formed a penumbra, the bigger boy intense brightness, the smaller boy overwhelmed, and lingering in his shadow. "Well, didn't it?"

"What?"

"Come in handy, I mean." Mundungus replaced his wand into the folds of his robes. "So what's your name?"

"Hector Karnaugh."

"S'nice to meet you, Hector."

"What's yours?" Mundungus nearly winced.

"My what?"

"Your name." Those owlish eyes blinked widely.

"Oh. Uhm." Mundungus mumbled something, looking away. "Fletcher."

"I didn't hear you, the first time. I'm sorry." Mundungus heaved a great, plagued sigh, and gave up.

"Mundungus Fletcher," Mundungus mumbled, scowling, "there, now you know, just don't make anything of it, all right?" It seemed that, of all the things Hector could do, what he did best was blink.

"What would I make of it?" he asked, wide-eyed.

"Well," Mundungus said, furious that he was blushing, "well, I don't know. My parents had a sick sense of humor, don't you think?"  
  
"I suppose?" 

"Let's not talk about it," Mundungus said quickly, busying himself with picking up Hector's things to give the blush time to fade. "We'll be late for supper if we don't hurry up and I don't know about you, but I'm so hungry I could eat a horse." The question of why Mundungus would want to eat a horse was hot on Hector's lips but something inside of him decided against asking it. When Mundungus offered out a hand to help Hector up Hector took it, and for the next seven years they never left the other's side.

Fate was funny, like that. 


	18. Chapter Sixteen: Maman

I know it took forever, but I've been busy, and crazed, and in general a second semester Junior, and just -- well, forgive me, and give me lots of reviews, and who knows about the next Chapter, eh? Noodles to ALL my reviewers. You are all my dahlings.  
  
  
  
  
**Chapter XVI: Maman**  
  
Olive Hornby was indeed very beautiful, and she knew it. That made her even more beautiful, though Arabella disliked her and her type of beauty immensely, and did not respect any man who found himself taken with it. Olive had deep black eyes and wore expensive black eye makeup to accentuate their depths. Her lips were naturally full and a dark pink color and so she never wore any lipstick; this made her feel very proud of herself, and so she looked even more beautiful. Her hair was worn in a wavy blonde bob reminiscent of those 1930s Muggle movie stars. She had been married three times and was very rich because two of her three husbands had died, leaving her everything. The other she had left because of some to-do or another, and two months later he'd simply disappeared.   
  
Arabella was of the mind that Olive Hornby was not to be trusted and was also incredibly obnoxious. The only reason Olive was remotely tolerable was because she was one, very intelligent, and two, a very gifted witch. Her charm, however, was revolting in its insincerity, and so Arabella was brusquely polite to her when contact was required, and ignored her completely the entire rest of the time.   
  
Now, the sun was shining, and it agreed wonderfully with Olive's complexion. There was a sprinkle of freckles over the snub nose that was heralding the approach of a bright summer. Olive was yawning a good deal because the hour was early and the last two members of the meeting expected had not yet arrived at Hogwarts. Arabella wanted to scream. She was impatient enough without listening to Olive yawn every three minutes. It was almost unbearable to wait while being forced to listen to that sound over and over and over again.   
  
"They're very late," Olive murmured, inspecting a perfectly manicured fingernail.   
  
"So were you," Arabella pointed out testily. Dumbledore lifted a brow and coughed. Olive's lips quirked.   
  
"They're _more_ late," Olive pointed out smoothly, so that Arabella had to clench her hands in her lap to keep herself from snapping a retort.   
  
"Patience, Olive," Minerva said, uncrossing her legs, crossing them again. "They will come. Mundungus was very determined, when he departed. I sincerely doubt he would allow himself to return empty-handed, much less not at all." The older woman pursed her lips. Basil St. Hemlock, who looked just as peeved as Arabella felt, nodded once. He would save all complaints for the ears that deserved to hear them: Mundungus's and Hector's. Noting this, Arabella found she felt grimly satisfied.   
  
Olive leaned over, bridging the distance between her chair and Arabella's.   
  
"Mundungus _did_ leave in quite a mood," she said, eyes flashing. "It was very becoming." Arabella turned to snap out a response when the door swung open, Mundungus's hand upon the doorknob. Hector, small and tired stood beside him. Arabella wondered if Mundungus had physically dragged him all the way to Hogwarts. Really, one didn't put such things beyond Mundungus's determination. Arabella's eyes must have shown the question, for Mundungus shook his head barely, even as he took Hector's arm, leading him into the room.   
  
"Why," Basil said, wryly, "so good of you to join us, both of you. Do please take your seats."   
  
"Sorry," Mundungus said. Arabella made a hissing sound through her teeth. "Well, I am," he said. He moved his chair closer to Hector's, waited for Hector sit, and then settled down, himself. Only Arabella noticed that he was just as tired looking, just as drawn, as Hector was, if not more so.   
  
"Thank you," Arabella said. It was quiet; only Hector and Mundungus heard it. Mundungus nodded.   
  
"Right," Albus said, "enough of this. We have business that needs attending."   
  
"We have had business that needed attending for a while now," Basil said. The comment was not as pointed towards Mundungus and Hector as it was towards Albus himself. The headmaster sighed, and folded his hands before him.   
  
"Then let us speak of it," he said reprovingly. "Henry Potter has been killed."   
  
"Aye, and others," Arabella said, "a good number of others, though none so openly and so unexpectedly as Henry."   
  
"A good friend," Albus murmured, shaking his head, "a good friend, an unparalleled colleague. We shall miss him greatly." There was silence in the room for a moment, thick and tense. "But we must talk of our own actions."   
  
"Or lack thereof." Minerva's voice and lips were tight. "We cannot let this go on any longer without fighting back, without taking the risks such action will entail. Our students' lives are in danger. The future is in danger."   
  
"Yes," Dumbledore said. He turned his eyes to Hector. "We thank you, for your return."   
  
"I thank you," Hector replied, cautiously, "for letting me." Mundungus touched his shoulder, and Hector strengthened himself. "I am ready now to do what you would ask of me." St. Hemlock nodded, his smile grim.   
  
"We must know," he instructed, speaking Albus's mind, "what is being plotted against us. We must have this foresight. Only prepared with such knowledge can we prevent unnecessary deaths that without your help, would be inevitable." Hector nodded, and drew in a deep breath. "We have everything prepared," Basil went on, "everything you once used, and more. Of course, lodging shall be provided-"   
  
"I believe," Mundungus interposed, "that Hector is to stay with me." Dumbledore peered at the young man over the rim of his glasses. Mundungus could have sworn the headmaster winked.   
  
"Very well," Basil went on, "so long as he is looked after, and willing to help us, as once he did."   
  
"I shall be," Hector promised. "I shall be." Arabella held her hands together, tight in her lap. The knuckles were white. Who knew what Mundungus and Hector had talked about on the trip to Hogwarts. Arabella only hoped that these feelings of Hector's would be strong enough to carry him through the times ahead.   
  
"We have other matters to speak of?" Olive asked. She had her eyes on Mundungus, though she was clearly talking to Dumbledore. "Enough time has been wasted - both in preparation for this meeting and in simply waiting for it to begin. We must get down to business or, I fear, we may never." Sometimes, it was hard to admit when Olive Hornby spoke such simple sense. Arabella frowned, but nodded, just a slight bob of her head.   
  
"Right you are, Olive," Dumbledore said. He pushed away from his desk and walked over to the bay window in his office. With one finger, he rubbed a smudge off the glass, and then let out a very soft sigh. "We have much to discuss," he said, "and there is much to be done."   
  
Hector Karnaugh wanted to bury his face in his hands. He felt impotent, even with his wand, in this place. Beside him, Mundungus edged his chair closer. Dumbledore cleared his throat, and Hector firmed himself, ready to be sucked up into the whirlwind of all this madness yet again, though he had tried his hardest to escape it.   
  
~*~   
  
Mundungus's place was close to Hogwarts, quite close, but that was to be expected. It was neat, the furniture was sparse, and it smelled familiar, as if Hector had been imagining it all along.   
  
"Well," Mundungus said, putting down their bags, "I don't know. I never really think of it is as home."   
  
"It's nice," Hector protested. "It's very nice, I think." Mundungus might have blushed. One couldn't tell. Hector smiled a little.   
  
"The guest bedroom is up the stairs, down the hall. Actually, 'Bella tends to stay in it a lot. You need to talk with 'Bella," Mundungus finished quickly, because he had to get it out there before Hector grew ready for it, wary of it. He had to say it while Hector was unprepared and therefore still listening. Hector's face hardened upon hearing it, and he leaned down to pick up his bags.   
  
"Please, Mundungus. If Arabella wishes to speak with me then she may do so. I don't think I'm the one who hates her; it's rather the other way 'round, isn't it." Hector made for the stairs. Mundungus's voice stopped him.   
  
"Oh, Hector, don't be an ass," Mundungus muttered, a frown in his voice. "You know very well that 'Bella doesn't hate you, nor does she hate me, though she has every reason to hate us both, and you know it." Mundungs ran his fingers through his hair, realizing for the first time how bloody tired he was. "Look. Maybe you should get some sleep. We'll have a nice breakfast and we'll talk about this all in the morning. It's a lot to adjust to."   
  
"I miss my lover, Mundungus." Mundungus winced.   
  
"Don't, Hector."   
  
"I miss my own bed, Mundungus, it takes me a while to get used to sleeping in unfamiliar places and you know that well as I do. I shan't get a good night's sleep and I shall be irritable in the morning and we shall have such a row and it will not be pleasant. Perhaps we had better talk about it now?"   
  
"But _I_ am irritable now," Mundungus muttered. There was minimal humor in his tones, though.   
  
"Yes, quite true." Hector set his suitcase down on the bottom step of the staircase that led up to the second floor. He folded his arms over his chest. "And so, if we get into an argument _now_, I can blame it on you. It won't be so in the morning."   
  
"Oh, nice," Mundungus muttered, but he was grinning now. "You always were like that. Too sneaky for anyone to do anything with."   
  
"Yes, yes," Hector agreed, his smile small but real, "that really was me, and is me, all over." He pushed his hair out of his eyes, then sighed. "Merlin, Mundungus, it's only four thirty in the afternoon, why in God's name are you tired out now?"   
  
"You're mixing your swear words," Mundungus said casually. "You tire me out, that's why. This has all tired me out. I don't like the idea of dying tomorrow just as much as you don't like the idea of me dying tomorrow, I'll have you know."   
  
"Don't say things like that. I won't forgive you for them, won't even think about forgiveness." Mundungus frowned down at his shoes.   
  
"Sorry," he mumbled. "You're as sensitive as ever." Hector fingered the banister's balustrade at his side, not sure why he felt so fidgety. His limbs ached and the thought of Arabella gave him a headache so severe he thought the great vein in his temple might burst out of his head and throttle him, just like that. Certainly, he was too tired to be fiddling with the top of the balustrade, but he was, indeed, doing just that. It took an actual attempt for Hector to still his hands.   
  
"Well, what else did you expect?" Hector asked. Mundungus offered a little shrug in response.   
  
"No, I expected as much," he replied. It occurred to him that the reason the air was so stale between them now was because Mundungus himself felt impossibly and terribly old. He coughed, to clean the air, to cut through the silence. It half worked. "Come on," Mundungus said, "I'll show you the room, and then, if you want, we can fight to your heart's content. We'll blame me, afterwards. C'mon." Mundungus crossed the distance between them and picked up Hector's suitcase. Hector rested a hand on Mundungus's forearm.   
  
"Perhaps, before we have a good row, just like old times, you could show me around the house? I'd like a grand tour better than I'd like a grand headache." The tension in Mundungus's shoulders seemed to be soothed by those words.   
  
"I think I'd like that better," Mundungus replied, starting up the stairs. "It's a rather nice place. I actually wish I could spend more time in it." It was Hector's turn to shrug.   
  
"Well, perhaps you will, yet," he said. Mundungus didn't want to point out that it didn't really quite matter, if he wasn't spending that time in the house with Hector; and Mundungus didn't want to point out either that he'd chosen the house with Hector and Arabella in mind. He was going to have to knock two heads together, two very stubborn heads at that, in order to get them to put aside their anger. He knew them all too well. They'd hold onto it for years, if he wasn't careful, if he wasn't just as bloody stubborn.   
  
"You would know," Mundungus said, feeling a little cheeky, "not me, isn't that right? Come on. The room's just this way."   
  
~*~   
  
They always wondered where the time went. So close to summer, now, only the edginess in their spirits, the restlessness of their bodies, saying that break was coming soon. Classes were an agony. The thought of summer was an agony. The thought of leaving one another was an agony. The idea of loss was yet too fresh in their minds that they could not let a friend leave their sight.   
  
James had returned a little older, Sirius thought, not wiser but filled with more knowledge of the workings of the world. In a silent way, Remus had been the most comfort to the boy, when he had first returned. And this was because, Sirius realized, Remus knew what it was James had lost.   
  
_Remus put out a hand, touched James on the shoulder. James though it must have been one of the first times Remus had ever really touched him, willingly and simply. It meant a lot. James looked at Remus, half-confused.   
  
"Remus?" he asked. Remus's eyes were dark and deep and somber. James understood, a little, why it was Sirius loved them so, looking into them then. Remus was so adult. Remus was so strong.   
  
"Don't ever forget him," Remus said softly. "Your father. Always remember the things you loved. Don't forget him."   
  
"I won't," James replied, swallowing. "Of course I won't."   
  
"Because that's the only way you can manage it," Remus continued, softer, but gently, so gently. "That's the only way you can ever manage it."   
  
James threw his arms around Remus then, and they had hugged, much to Lilly and Sirius's surprise, and Peter's outright shock. The first person James touched when he returned from that strange land - strange not because it was a place he did not know, but because it was a place he had known so, so well, and knew not at all any longer - was Remus. Lilly looked away, could not bear to see it.   
  
Later, Sirius took Remus into his arms, and kissed his temple, and Remus felt soft but brittle.   
  
"Thank you," Sirius said. "Thank you, Remus. Thank you." Sirius loved James like a brother and he loved Remus like Remus and it meant something, in a place he could not articulate with his words, that Remus had offered James such comfort.   
  
He had done it a good deal for Sirius's sake, of course; but Remus did not know if he should tell Sirius that, and so he didn't._   
  
As always, spring was a hungry season, filled with memories of snow and longing for the warmth of a truly hot day. Sirius spent time at James's side and at Remus's side and at Lily's side and even at Peter's side. Peter was not so charismatic as he might have been but he could tell a mean joke and he could, if he wished, brighten a room with some amount of laughter. It was self-deprecating, always, but Sirius never thought to question it. Such questions did not come to you in the spring.   
  
Such questions as, "Remus?" on one cool night, up against a tree trunk, came easily, though, especially when the stars seemed so far away, and so unutterably cold.   
  
"Sirius." The wind moved through Remus's hair, brushed it over his forehead. Sirius's fingers followed suit.   
  
"So what was she like?"   
  
"Mm?" Remus sighed, and leaned into the touch. Sirius had a way of taking all his words away from his lips. Sirius had a way of making Remus forget everything he'd ever read. It was disconcerting in its own way, and wonderful, too. Remus touched the back of Sirius's wrist, not catching Sirius's meaning.   
  
"Your mother. What was she like?" Remus's fingers stilled. Then, he caught Sirius's wrist, gently, fingers wrapped around it.   
  
"I don't know if I really want to talk about it," Remus admitted.   
  
"Go on," Sirius coaxed, and Remus, unexpectedly, did.   
  
"She was beautiful. My father loved her so much, so much." Sirius closed his eyes, felt the strength behind Remus's slim fingers. "I don't know," Remus went on, "sometimes, I can remember what she looks like. But only sometimes. Most others, I only remember her voice. She used to sing. She used to sing to me, arias. She had a very beautiful voice. My father says I have her eyes, her face - I have everything about her, I suppose." Sirius had opened his eyes again, had turned them upwards to the sky. It was easy to watch the stars - there were so many of them, it was impossible for there to be so many of them! - when he listened to Remus talk.   
  
"I can't imagine what it's like," Sirius whispered. The stars heard him. He was sure of it. So did Remus.   
  
"Not to remember your mother's face?" Sirius nodded, slowly. Remus touched the back of his wrist. "My father has pictures of her. Somewhere. I just don't want to look at them. I don't really want to see them."   
  
"How is it for James, then? Christ, I knew his da. He was amazing. He was a real great guy." Remus let breath out between his teeth. "What did you tell James?" Remus shrugged.   
  
"I don't really remember," he said. He kissed the back of Sirius's wrist. It was very gentlemanly, but Sirius could not find it within himself to really laugh.   
  
"Of course you remember," the bigger boy challenged. Remus closed his eyes. His face and his hair and his sweater and his hands and oh his lips were all a splay of different shades of gray as Sirius watched him. "C'mon, Remus, I know you too well. Of course you remember," Sirius repeated.   
  
"Yes," Remus said, "of course I do." He kissed the back of Sirius's hand. "Come on. Let's go inside. It's getting cold."   
  
"Tell me, first. Tell me what you told James and then we can go inside." Something hooted in a tree up above.   
  
"I told _him_ something," Remus replied firmly, "I told him, not you, and if you want to know you can ask him. Besides," and here, Remus faltered, "I think it only makes sense, if you - if you've lost someone. I think."   
  
"Tell me anyway." Sirius's voice softened. Sitting up, he cupped Remus's cheek in one broad palm. "It meant a lot to him. I'd like to know. I mean, I guess, I can't be the best for him in every case, so I think I just, just want to know. What it is that meant so much to him. Because it meant so much to him, Moony." Remus sighed, deeply, and bowed his head.   
  
"I told him not to forget the good things about his father," the smaller of the two answered finally. "That's all. It isn't much."   
  
"Oh," Sirius said. He brushed his thumb along Remus's cheek. "That's all?"   
  
"Because there was so much about my mother," Remus continued, a little impulsively, "so much about her that I'd like to remember, but it isn't - well, it isn't good. And I loved her. For a lot of my life, I loved her, so I shouldn't remember the minutes where I," Remus faltered. "Where I didn't," he finished finally. The owl above them hooted into the silence.   
  
"I'm gonna figure it out one day," Sirius promised, as they walked back to the school, under the protection of the invisibility cloak. "I'm gonna figure out what to say to you just like you knew what to say to James."   
  
"You don't need to," Remus replied, pressed up close to him in the night. It was empowering, to be held so close, to be invisible to even the stars. "You really don't need to."   
  
"But knowing how to touch you isn't enough," Sirius chided, a little sadly. "It's just not enough." Remus thought perhaps they needed to learn these opposite skills from each other, but he was sure time and habit would hone them, not intentional practice.   
  
"All right," Remus said, "but it's close."   
  
They laughed, and that was all the night saw of them, before they curled up together in Remus's bed, and dreamt of forests and each other.   
  
~*~   
  
James watched Sirius pretend to smoke with a half-interested gaze. He was much more contemplative as of late, James was, and therefore much more quiet, also. Sirius wondered often if that was what adulthood meant, a quiet that settled over you, but then again, Sirius knew a hell of a lot of loud adults. The only thing Sirius could be really sure of was that James had changed, and though he still smiled he did not smile as much, nore as easily. It was almost like hanging around with Remus had been, at first: like beating our head against a wall to get a laugh.   
  
"Voldemort killed my father," James said into the still spring afternoon. It was a favorite spot of theirs, where they lazed now, a little pool of sunlit water before them. Only water-skimmers disturbed the water's surface. "I asked my mum and she told me." Tightness constricted Sirius's heart and all he could do was blow smoke out his mouth in an O. "Voldemort killed my dad, and nobody's doing anything about it, Sirius."   
  
"We will," Sirius promised. He stubbed his fag out forcefully in the wet dirt at his side.   
  
"What can we do?" James questioned, eyes wild. "We're kids. We're just kids. We may be good at Quidditch and that's great fun, and we may be good at sneaking around, and that's great fun, too, but Sirius, it doesn't mean anything! We're not adults yet but we will be soon and it's this in-between feeling that I hate so much. I need to know I'll be able to do something. Even if I have to wait. I need to know that I'm waiting for a good reason. That's all." James closed his eyes and swallowed, his throat dry and tight.   
  
"We oughta stop being kids, then," Sirius said, after James's breathing had calmed and his eyes had again fixed on Sirius, waiting for an answer to all his unspoken questions. "I mean. It's not so simple as that, I know, but we should - let's put our minds to something amazing to leave behind us."   
  
"Are you trying a distraction tactic on me, Sirius Black?" James asked, lifting a brow. Sirius grinned, albeit weakly.   
  
"Well, it's a good idea," Sirius offered. "It'll take a while to complete, and by the time we're done, you know, we'll be ready to do a whole lot of other things. I mean, for your da. To Voldemort." The name had always tasted foul, Sirius told himself. And oh, how he hated the sound of it now, how his anger filled him just thinking about it. "Because you don't have to worry, James," Sirius promised, "we're going to get whatever revenge we can. And it's gonna be some revenge, some great revenge, at that."   
  
"You promise?" James asked, honest and small. "You promise you'll be there with me, and you'll help me?"   
  
"Christ, James," Sirius muttered, leaning over to tousle James's already tousled hair, "you think I wouldn't for the life of me be next to you every bloody step of the bloody way?"   
  
"Promise me," James said, "you have to promise me."   
  
"I promise you," Sirius said. James offered Sirius his hand and Sirius took it in his own with grave solemnity.   
  
"I do solemnly swear," James said, and nodded, once, as if he were sealing some implicit deal, in which they were brothers, partners and masterminds.   
  
"You know," Sirius mused, "that's catchy. That has a nice ring to it." James ducked his head and grinned a little bit.   
  
"You think? I mean, I think so, too. It does have a nice ring to it."   
  
"A nice cadence," Sirius said, proudly. It was something Remus might have said, he thought. Anyway, it was one of those glorious words that sounded exactly the way one would expect them to, judging by their meaning.   
  
"What are you talking about, you great git? Been reading the dictionary for fun and profit again, have you?" James cuffed Sirius on the cheek.   
  
"Been talking to Remus Lupin, actually," Sirius returned, thwapping James's shoulder playfully in retaliation. "Close enough." They laughed a little and Sirius flopped back against the ground and flung one arm around James's shoulders.   
  
"It's going to be all right, Sirius," James murmured.   
  
"I know. It's going to be all right, James," Sirius promised.   
  
Later, they walked back to Hogwarts itself in the cooling breeze, scuffing dirt beneath their heels, out of the path of their toes. It was getting on towards suppertime and Sirius heard, felt, his stomach growl in anticipation. Remus and Lilly and Peter would be saving them two seats in a few minutes. It felt comfortable thinking of the scene, before Sirius and James would arrive onto it, comfortable like looking at a postcard of faraway places you visited last summer.   
  
"Something's up," James said, mostly to himself. "I don't know, can't you feel it?" But Sirius had stopped walking; he hadn't even heard the statement, or the question that followed it. James turned, and frowned, and let his eyes follow Sirius's gaze. Before them, standing very still, was a slight man. He had bright eyes, though, and an intelligent face, rather surprised, and in its own way rather happy.   
  
"Hallo, Sirius," the man said. He lifted a hand, and waved.   
  
"Hullo, Hector," Sirius replied, grinning faintly. "You on vacation or something?"   
  
"More like the opposite, actually," Hector said. "I'm here on business, it would seem. And, hallo: James, is it?" Hector nodded towards James, who blinked.   
  
"Oh," James said, "yes. Hello."   
  
"We met a couple of summers ago," Hector said, "I think, when you and Sirius were so determined to succeed at something." Hector lifted a brow in Sirius direction and Sirius grinned sheepishly.   
  
"Yes!" James exclaimed. "Right, you made really great scones. We had tea, in your house, a lot. When we, uhm, got frustrated. It was really great," James added.   
  
"Why, thank you." Hector smiled.   
  
"You're welcome," James replied, grinning a bit. James always was good with other people.   
  
"I want you to meet Remus," Sirius spoke up quickly and suddenly, with no pause for a segue. "He'll be at the dining hall in about five minutes, would you mind?" Again, Hector smiled, though this time, it was apologetic.   
  
"I'm sorry, I've a meeting to make," he murmured, rubbing the side of his own cheek with a thumb, "but I'll have Albus pass along an invitation to you - for you, and this famed Remus, and James, and anyone else, if you'd like. Hopefully, Mundungus will be around, and - well, in any case," Hector continued, almost hurriedly, "if all this is all right with you, that is." Sirius nodded eagerly.   
  
"Of course," he agreed, "sure, that's fine. That's great, really." A relieved, almost young expression passed over Hector's face at the obvious enthusiasm in Sirius's voice and eyes. James nodded his agreement with Sirius's statement.   
  
"If you're going to make those scones, count me in," James said cheerfully.   
  
"I'll see the both of you before summer break, then," Hector assured, "though it's a busy time you've caught me at, which is quite unfortunate."   
  
"Why are you here?" James asked impulsively. Hector did not answer at first, but trotted over to the bespectacled boy, and rested a hand on his left shoulder.   
  
"Your father was Henry Potter, wasn't he?" James swallowed thickly and managed somehow to nod. "The resemblance is very striking, and very moving, also," Hector continued, sighing softly. "I am so sorry, so sorry, for your loss." Hector gathered himself up to move on, but paused, looking down, and spoke again. "That is why I am here. Oh, make of that what you will, for Albus will use you soon enough, and you will know, then. Use you and protect you, of course. Heavens. I'll see you, then." A tired smile paused on his lips, and then he hurried off.   
  
"Well," James murmured, after he had disappeared entirely, shaking his head a bit to clear the spell of Hector's words from his mind, "what d'you suppose that meant, then? It certainly meant something. Here because of my father?" Wrapping his arms around himself, James started off towards the building once more. Sirius hurried his usual pace to keep up with the other boy, trying to piece together the meanings behind Hector's cryptic words, as well.   
  
"It sounds like Albus has something going on," Sirius replied, thoughtfully, "d'you want to ask him about it? Figure out what he's up to? If he'll tell us, that is." James shook his head slowly.   
  
"I don't think so," he answered after a long pause, "no, let's just go get supper. I'm half bloody starved."   
  
"Well, if that's what you want."   
  
"Yes, it's what I want," James assured his friend. "We'll know soon enough, I think. The way Dumbledore looks at me sometimes, and what Hector said - well, we'll know, I think. That's all. I'll race you?" Sirius's eyes flashed, hungry for a chance to be a child again, and with a whoop of excitement, he was off. Strangling a cry of protest at this new injustice, James streaked off after the bigger boy in the settling afternoon, speckled with the prospect of dusk.   
  
~*~   
  
"All right, I know you're in there, open up," Arabella commanded, arms crossed over her chest. The door and doorknob seemed rattled and persuaded both by her tone of voice, but whoever was behind the door obviously was not. "Oh for heaven's sake," Arabella snapped out, feeling like a fool, talking to the damn door, "Hector, I'll break the door down if you don't open up. We need to talk and we're blood well going to, so don't make this harder than it already is for me." Silence. "Hector." Silence again. "Hector!"   
  
"Oh, Christ," Hector grumbled, swinging the door open, "if we must. Do come in, Arabella; Mundungus and I were just sitting down to tea, and then you knocked, and then Mundungus threatened me with the tea pot until I came to answer the door, and now I'm here and you're here; and would you like a scone? They're freshly made."   
  
"Did you make them, or did Mundungus?" Arabella asked warily. Because I don't for a second trust Mundungus's baking, but I remember your scones clear as yesterday, and fondly, at that." Hector found himself smiling, as he stepped backwards to let Arabella walk in. He closed the door behind her, though he carefully kept his distance.   
  
"Let me take your jacket. I made them, yes."   
  
"Are they the walnut scones?" As Arabella shrugged out of her jacket Hector took it, and then hung it up on one of the pegs by the door. The smell of freshly baked scones brought back too many memories, all of them too wonderful to be anything but painful now. Though it was warm, Arabella shivered.   
  
"The walnut scones, actually, yes," Hector murmured, taking her hand. "I think, they were your favorite?" Some time, pinched quality came over Arabella's features, and she gave Hector's hand a little squeeze.   
  
"Well, yes," she murmured, "they were."   
  
"Are they still?" We might as well find out. I haven't made them in a while, but I think they've come out all right. I suppose you'll be the best judge, if any." Arabella stood there and looked sideways at Hector, who was trying his best to look at her straight on. It would have been so easy for one of them to move forward and end this terrible distance.   
  
"It's been such a long time, Hector," Arabella broke the silence finally. "I think that now is as good a time as ever for me to forgive you."   
  
"Please," Hector murmured, "because I can offer no more valid apologies, and it seems that we are getting nowhere being awkward with one another."   
  
"You left us," Arabella said quietly, "and I loved you so. I didn't even know you were going to leave. Just walked in to dinner and Mundungus looked like someone had shot him in the stomach two seconds before, and there it was; you'd left us all. I forgive you, Hector. Merlin, but I hated you so; Merlin, but it would have been so much easier if I really had." Hector touched her cheek, patted her hair helplessly. "I forgive you, though. Hector, Hector." Arabella moved forward, awkward, and Hector wrapped his arms around her shoulders, awkward, but after that it fit and felt right, really right. Arabella held on to the back of Hector's neck. With a little sigh, Hector pressed his cheek against Arabella's and it felt good, like absolution. Arabella smelled like thyme and grass. Hector laughed, though it sounded more like a sob than anything else, and released the relief in him that way. If he didn't release it somehow, he was sure he might explode.   
  
_"He left us." Later, after dinner, after neither of them had touched their food; the silence between their bodies terrible and devastating. Arabella felt like crying. In fact, Arabella was about to cry. She ground the heel of her palm into her eye and tried to steady her swimming vision, to no avail. Instead, she licked her lips and stared up at the ceiling. She was going to cry and all she could think about was being alone, physically alone, so that emotionally she could feel protected in that tangible solitude.   
  
"It would seem he did." If ever a man looked like the walking dead, it was Mundungus. He'd only just realized something, and while the knowledge that, had Hector stayed, it would have forever gone unrealized was simply not comforting enough. Ever since he had known Mundungus's left had hand stayed clenched tight in a fist, as if the tensed muscles and the fingernails against the flesh of his palm were a grounding force, were keeping him at the same time from drowning in a wave of agony and despair. "I didn't even know anything. Minerva told me and I looked at her and I told her she was a crazy old bat, because that much was blatantly obvious. What would Hector need to leave for, and all that? You know. You know, of course you know." Mundungus swallowed, could not bring himself to look at Arabella. Arabella had told him once, in the privacy of a youthful night, that she was in love and Mundungus, brow furrowed, had discovered without needing to ask that it was Hector Arabella was in love with. "I'm sorry, 'Bella. Merlin, 'Bella, I'm so sorry."   
  
"Don't you leave me," Arabella hissed, voice brittle and her whole body brittle, too. "Promise not to leave me. Promise to stay with me. I can't lose you too. I can't bear it. I'm not a nice person, Mundungus, I can't make friends easily. I can't make friends at all. Why the fuck would he leave, I hate him." Mundungus reached over and took her hand, kissed it. "You didn't love him like I did," Arabella whispered. She was quiet, so quiet. "You didn't love him the way I did. You couldn't have." Mundungus had bowed his head at that. Silent. "Oh gods, what do we do, now that he's gone? What in Merlin's name are we going to do?"_   
  
"Shall we have scones, then? Comfort food, I believe it's called. And Mundungus will be waiting." Hector ran his fingers through Arabella's hair. Arabella kissed his cheek. "It's been a long time since the three of us had scones, hasn't it, 'Bella. Come on. We should-Mundungus is waiting, and-we shouldn't drive him crazy," Hector finished quickly. Arabella patted the cheek she had kissed, and nodded.   
  
"Yes, of course; he's on the edge of his seat by now, I'm sure. Let's go then, dear. I never could resist those bloody scones."   
  
_"Marry me, Mundungus."   
  
"What?"   
  
"I said, marry me. Will you?" Arabella's eyes were bright flecks of light and her face was beautiful, so beautiful, when it was determined so adamantly and so intensely. "I can't imagine marrying anyone else," she explained, when Mundungus simply blinked dumbly at her, "because I don't know anyone better than I know you, after all." There was Hector, but Hector had gone, a good few months ago. It was a late night and they were a little drunk together, a little drunk and a little lonely.   
  
"Are you in love with me?" Mundungus's brow furrowed. He was so good to look at, Arabella thought, and good looking, too. He looked familiar, even if you didn't know him, and devoted and he had great eyes, a great jaw-line. Arabella wondered to herself if that was why Hector had adored, had loved, him so. Fuck, but it hurt to think on that, now, now that Hector was gone and there was no way to ever really ask him - well, ask him a whole lot of things.   
  
"I love you," Arabella answered, after a very long time of pausing to think, "I love you very much, in fact."   
  
"But you're not in love with me. You're in love with Hector." Arabella winced. "I know. We're not supposed to talk about him. But it's true. Why are you asking me this?" Mundungus was a little more sober than Arabella was, and he felt nervous. Things were too complicated now that Hector was gone. There was no one to keep the two remaining really grounded, or even sane, in certain ways.   
  
"I love you, I do, and I've never spent more time with one man in my life," Arabella answered. It was true. She'd spent a good few months more with Mundungus than she had with Hector. "Marry me, Mundungus."   
  
"When, 'Bella?"   
  
"Tomorrow. Let's get married tomorrow." Arabella touched Mundungus's cheek, and smiled faintly. It was rough. She wondered what it would be like to kiss him. "Let's do it. We'd have a good go at it."   
  
"I think we'd kill each other, 'Bella. I think we'd kill each other right after the honeymoon." Arabella ran her fingers over Mundungus's cheek and he shivered.   
  
"But just think about the honeymoon," she said. "Marry me."   
  
"Yes," Mundungus said. "Of course. Yes."_   
  
Arabella draped one arm over Hector's shoulders. It was indeed good, better than good, to have him back.   
  
"And you haven't changed the recipe?" Arabella questioned, as they made their way towards the kitchen, where Mundungus waited for them.   
  
"Not at all," Hector assured her, "when you find something that works, why ever would you change it?" His eyes crinkled in the corners as he smiled. It was the most beautiful expression Arabella Figg had ever seen.   
  
"It's good to have you back, Hector," she said, and smiled at Mundungus, who looked up when they came in.   
  
"Isn't it, though," Mundungus agreed. "The scones are getting cold."   
  
"A travesty," Hector mourned, "come on, before they get colder, and I have to make an entire other batch, just so we can have them fresh." Mundungus stood and pulled out a chair for Arabella to sit in, all of them around the kitchen table, and Hector went to get a third plate. Whoever thought up that stupid saying - "Two's company, three's a crowd" - hadn't known them, certainly enough. Mundungus feel a great weight lift from his shoulders. They were still selfish, really; the world was about to crumble around their ears, and they were eating scones together, prepared to be truly, honestly happy despite everything. The world, however, had almost ruined them. Of course, they couldn't crawl into bed with each other every night, that much was clear, and there was so much time that had been lost. Mundungus knew Hector felt the pang of that loss just as acutely as the other two did, though Hector himself had managed to move on better than Mundungus had, or even Arabella. At the thought of that young man - _"I miss my lover, Mundungus."_ -- Mundungus frowned a little, to himself.   
  
Merlin help him, but things would get complicated.   
  
But when Hector put a scone on his plate, it seemed as if they were almost children again, children who knew more, knew enough to discard their knowledge, in order to savor the sweetness of a sweet day.   
  
~*~   
  
_Dear Papa,   
  
I'll be coming home soon, as school is almost over; that much, I know you know. I'm sorry I haven't written to you in a very long while, but so much has happened, that I don't believe I've had any time to. James's father was killed two months ago today; James says, it has to do with a war that's coming. I don't know what that means, but I suppose James would know better than I. I should have written to tell you sooner, but all of us were, as you can imagine, so very shocked, that I'm not sure I would have been able to even write so much down.   
  
James himself has changed, because of it. Of course, he would; anyone would. He loved his father very much, he says, and he's lucky. He has wonderful things to remember. I wish I could tell him everything, everything that I remember, but I don't remember much, anymore. It's all very gray. I would try to tell him, if I thought I could remember enough to be of help.   
  
But papa - I haven't thought of her death in a long time, and we have never between us talked about it. It seems strange, and yet somehow not so strange, that we haven't. I don't think we should. That's why I'm writing this letter: I need to talk to you about it, but I don't think I could, just speaking. Writing is so much easier for this sort of thing. All I have to do is get up the courage to post this, rather than actually bring words to my mouth on the spot.   
  
I don't remember what she looks like, anymore. She was beautiful. I know she was beautiful, but I can't put features to that beauty. I can only really remember her voice. (I think I want to sing, sometimes; but then I remember her singing, and I'm not sure if I can. I sang for Sirius once and said he liked it, but I can't imagine singing for anyone else. I especially can't imagine singing in French.)   
  
Mostly, I think I was wondering if you still had pictures of her, if you thought it better for me to forget her entirely or remember, know that I know what little I do know, about myself. I seem to remember that we looked very much alike. I wonder if we still do; ever since James came back to Hogwarts after the funeral, I find myself wondering about that more and more. It's a nagging, terrible question: and so what if I do look like her, and so what if I don't? Either way, I don't know what I'm looking for, what answer it is I hope to get, from you or from her picture or from some scent of the past that will explain everything to me.   
  
Do you think she was trying to kill me?   
  
No, no; that is a stupid question. I'm sorry I asked it. If you hadn't thought she was going to then what happened would not have happened, I suppose. I'm sorry I asked it, really. (Not so sorry to rewrite this letter, to make sure you never read it. Not so sorry as all that. I feel very transparent writing this letter, papa; transparent, and young.)   
  
In any case, I'll be home soon. A lot has happened, too much to write down. Shall we have fish and chips the first night I get back? Sirius has gotten me to eat more at meals and so I think I'll order a large side of chips rather than a medium. I've missed them. One of the only things they don't have here is fish and chips, I think. They have almost everything else.   
  
Love,   
  
Remus   
  
PS: Should I bring back any more Chocolate Frogs, or would you prefer a plain sort of chocolate, instead? There's some very good fudge to be found in Hogsmeade, and most of it is quite normal. (I would be getting you the normal sort.)_   
  
~*~   
  
"It's a nice house," Lilly said thoughtfully, as the group of five approached the door. "A nice area, too."   
  
"Really close to Hogwarts, actually," James murmured, brow furrowing, darkening, for a moment, in thought. Lilly peered over at him.   
  
"Something the matter?" she queried.   
  
"What?" James blinked himself out of his reverie. "Oh, no, nothing's the matter at all. It's just, you know, convenient. That's all. Ring the bell?" Sirius looked at James when Lilly turned back towards the doorbell, and gave it a ring. It was a nice Sunday and James Potter was obviously thinking exactly what Sirius Black was thinking: that it was unusually close to the school itself, and wasn't that funny, that Hector was here on business, and staying in this carefully situated house? _Maybe he's going to be a teacher,_ Sirius thought to himself, though it didn't seem very likely. He was cut off from musing further on the matter when the door swung open, and Hector appeared in the doorway.   
  
"Oh, wonderful," the man said, "you all came. I take it you're Lilly, and you, are Remus?" He nodded to each as he spoke their names, and they nodded back, Remus's eyes moving to rest on Sirius for a moment, wondering how Hector knew so very much about them as to recognize them so easily. "And you're Peter," Hector went on, "nice to see you again, very nice. Do come in, I've made scones, the cinnamon ones that you liked best, James, I believe, and you as well, Peter?" When the two grinned back at the man, he seemed quite pleased; he stepped back and let them file in one by one before he closed the door, locked it. Remus had the odd feeling that of the five, Hector was paying closest attention to him, and he stuck close to Sirius as they were ushered into the dining room. A plate piled high with fresh scones sat on the table, and there were seven places set.   
  
"Seven?" Remus asked, immediately, turning to look at Hector.   
  
"A good friend of mine shall be joining us; Mundungus Fletcher," Hector explained, seeming oddly pleased that it was Remus who had asked this question. "But he is notoriously late, and so you had all better eat while everything's still hot. How do you like your tea?"   
  
"I resent that implication," a new voice said, as a taller, broader man came into the dining room, arms folded across his chest, a half-chiding look on his face. "Already prejudicing your friends against me; now that's cruelty, I tell you, if I ever saw it."   
  
"Do be quiet, Mundungus; have a scone, or something. As I was asking, how do you like your tea?"   
  
"Uhm," Lilly said, "two sugars, and cream."   
  
"Admirable," the man named Mundungus said, sitting. He was quite the presence in a small room, Remus noticed.   
  
"One sugar, and cream," Peter said.   
  
"Three sugars," Sirius said, grinning, "and cream as well, but you know that."   
  
"Yes, yes, I do," Hector replied, and he returned the grin. Remus, who was watching Mundungus, noted how the big man's eyes lit up at that, though he kept quiet about it. "Now; James, I don't remember how you take it, and Remus?"   
  
"Same as Lilly," James answered easily.   
  
"The same as Lilly, as well," Remus replied, folding his napkin over his lap. Hector nodded, once.   
  
"I'll be right back," he told them, "don't let Mundungus eat all the scones, then, just smack his hand if he takes more than two." Mundungus laughed a little and Sirius grinned, reaching out a hand for Mundungus to shake.   
  
"I'm Sirius," he said, "it's really great to meet you."   
  
"A pleasure," Mundungus replied, equally cheerful. "How d'you know Hector, then? He's not the sort who gets around, really."   
  
"He lives right near me," Sirius explained, biting unceremoniously into a scone as he spoke, "with, uhm, Damon, you know him? I've never met him, I don't think."   
  
"I know him," Mundungus said. He looked away, and only Remus, again, caught his expression; this time, though the smile had faded from his lips. Remus was curious, quite curious, though he had never been made curious by the emotions and the troubles of others before. "So, as I seemed to have missed all the introductions, who is everybody, again?"   
  
"This is Remus Lupin," Sirius said, pointing, "and Peter Pettigrew, and that's Lilly Evans, and that idiot's James Potter; don't talk to him, he's sort of, you know, affected, in the head. A sad thing, really, but his mum dropped him on the head when he was a little boy and he's just never been the same about things since." Sirius shrugged, looking very mournful indeed. "But, what can you do?" he asked, perking up immediately, as he went back to his scone.   
  
"Eat a scone, it'd seem," James muttered, leaning across the table to smack the back of Sirius's head.   
  
"Ow!" Sirius said.   
  
"Now, boys," Lilly murmured demurely, tasting her scone, her eyes lighting up, "manners, manners. What would your mums say, then, hmm?"   
  
"Mine'd hit me like James just did," Sirius answered, this time seeming really mournful. Both Mundungus and Remus laughed a little, at that.   
  
"All right," Hector said, struggling with a tray as he re-entered the room, "I can't for the life of me remember who got what, so I believe I'll just have to set this all down, be a terrible host, and have you serve yourselves; is that all right?"   
  
"Here," Mundungus said, standing quickly, "I'll help with that." His big hands took hold of the tray, and the two of them set it down on the table, by the scones. Seven cups of tea, two small pitchers of cream, and a sugar bowl. It was a very nice tea set; Remus remembered such things, little details, not because he found them important, but mostly because he caught hold of them while not looking at other people straight on.   
  
"Thank you," Hector said. Sirius immediately liked the bigger man. It was something about the way he treated Hector Karnaugh, but it was just the way Sirius thought Hector should be treated, and that was good enough for Sirius to like a guy. Mundungus rested a hand for a moment on Hector's shoulder, waited for Hector to sit down before he himself sat once more. The quiet way with which Hector received the kindnesses felt like intrusion, to watch. Sirius looked away.   
  
"D'you want a scone, Remus?" he asked, turning to face the boy on his left.   
  
"Oh," Remus said, and then nodded, smiling slightly. "Yes, please." Further dialogue stopped then, as they ate until they were near bursting, drank their tea only when they paused in eating their scones. In fact, close to the only things said were compliments paid to Hector for his wonderful baking, who did not eat, but rather drank his tea, and basked in the warmth these almost-children brought into his house. It was carefree, the laughter and the pleasure they indulged in. This was the way, Hector thought, he should have been protected when he was a child; and it made him desperately sad to know he would not be able to keep these four young men and this one young woman safe for more than an afternoon.   
  
~*~   
  
"So," Hector said, folding his hands in his lap as he leaned back in the couch, sighing a little. Mundungus had taken Lilly, James, Sirius and Peter out into the back to see the garden, and it seemed Remus had sensed Hector's desire to speak with him; he had told the others he would be right out to join them shortly. Now, he sat on the opposite end of the couch from Hector, one leg tucked up beneath him so he could face the man.   
  
"So," the small boy said, tilting his head to the side. Hector sensed immediately that the boy didn't play social games; perhaps, he didn't know how, or perhaps he simply didn't see fit to. It didn't matter. Hector liked him.   
  
"How long have you known Sirius?" Hector asked, seizing on that to be his first question. Remus smiled a little to himself before answering.   
  
"Oh," he said, "oh, a very long while, I think. No; no, it was before we'd even been sorted, our first day. Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. He punched a boy in my defense, I believe, though it was really that he wanted to punch a boy for any reason. Why d'you ask?"   
  
"It's a lovely story, I knew it would be." Hector's eyes flashed with a brightness that made Remus smile in return.   
  
"It is nice, in its own way," he agreed, "isn't it."   
  
"He talks about you a great deal. You see, I live not forty feet away from him, and in the summers, he seems to be rather a-a restless spirit, I think you could call it. He tends to talk a lot about you, if he's in the mood for talking." Remus found to his surprise that such talk was making him blush. "Well, you can't really be surprised that you're practically the only thing he talks about," Hector said, softer, "can you? Or are you like me, doomed to be oblivious until the end of your days?" The two of them laughed, though the sound of the laughter was a little tinny and a little sad. "It would seem so. I knew I liked you for a reason." Remus shrugged, movements quiet and unassuming.   
  
"You seem very, very nice," he said, "and I am glad to meet you. Sirius can go off about things; though, rarely, when he's with me, does he go off about me, you see. Not, not that I doubt him, or anything he does say." With another little shrug, Remus settled himself back comfortably against the couch. "I'm sure you know what I mean."   
  
"Yes. I think, I do." Hector smiled reassuringly. "Remus Lupin is quite a name, you know. French, is it?"   
  
"Mm." Remus nodded. "Yes, it is French." Hector nodded, thoughtful.   
  
"Yes, I'd thought so. I think Sirius might have told me, but I wasn't quite sure if he had or not. My memory, perhaps, isn't what it used to be?" A little smile at the corner of Remus's mouth showed he knew Hector was joking. Hector relaxed, and went on. "So you've known Sirius nearing six years, now?"   
  
"It seems rather shorter than I think, when other people say it," Remus mused. "But it feels like I don't remember anything before he came along." Another blush crept onto Remus's cheeks. "Sorry," he said quickly, "I'm talking to much."   
  
"You hardly talked at all before, it's all right; quite, quite. In fact, I rather like it. You have a good deal to say, I should think. You read a lot?"   
  
"A-lot, yes. Quite a lot, how did you know?" Hector grinned, and Remus took that to mean: Sirius, again. Of course. It made Remus slightly proud and slightly, just slightly, bunched up inside, to know Sirius spent all his summers talking about _him_. It was in fact a very good thing to know, like a secret that wasn't exactly a secret, but was so wonderful to store as one, anyway.   
  
"Sirius told me, as much, but I assumed, just by hearing you speak. Do you want to be a writer, then?"   
  
"Oh, no," Remus answered immediately, as if the question were absurd. "Words are only wonderful when there is something behind them. I don't have that - facility - with which authors put syllables and emotions together. I prefer to read, that's all," Remus finished, licking his lips. "That's all," he repeated, shyly.   
  
"I don't know," Hector said carefully, "you might make a very good essayist."   
  
"D'you think, really?"   
  
"Yes. Or a teacher, perhaps. I think you could make things very-very lucid, for students. Whom, might I be so bold to ask, do you read? No, wait; let me guess, first." For a while, Hector was silent, his brow furrowed just slightly as he thought. "Let me see; let me think," he continued at last, as Remus watched him think, "you read Shakespeare, of course, and you like Hamlet. Yes?" Remus nodded, blinking widely.   
  
"Did Sirius tell you that?" he asked, wonderingly.   
  
"What? Oh, no, he didn't. It just seems you would like Hamlet. I like Hamlet." Hector smiled, feeling slightly sheepish. "Who else, then? Sometimes I do this with people; I really shouldn't. I've been told it rather puts others off."   
  
"It doesn't," Remus replied, pensively, "well, at least, not me. But - I don't know. I've read an awful lot, and a lot of it rather awful. A lot of it wonderful, though."   
  
"Poets? Playwrights? Novelists?"   
  
"Edna St. Vincent Millay. Shakespeare, as you said. Faulkner." Remus rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully. "Just off the top of my head, though."   
  
"Commendable," Hector told him, "quite commendable." Remus paused, toying with the hem of his sleeve, which he found was very easy to do when he was talking with anyone other than Sirius. "Is something the matter?"   
  
"What? Oh, no; I just feel that I ought to talk with you about Sirius, if he talks with you about me." Blushing again, Remus wondered why it was he found it so hard to talk with people, really talk with them. At home, Etienne tended not to talk much at all, but then again, conversation had never come easily to the two of them. He'd inherited that trait from his father, that awkwardness of speech, because Dalila Lupin, he remembered in bits and pieces and in dreams, talked easy and fast and simply, like the sound of a cool stream. Without any trouble at all, Remus could conjure the sound of her voice; it filled the silence with laughter and with comfort. He wondered at the memory of that voice now, though, and kept it close to him, all at once. Remus took his own advice as best as he could.   
  
"What would you like to talk about, then? About Sirius, of course; what aspect of Sirius are you keen on, at the moment?"   
  
"Every aspect," Remus answered truthfully. "I don't know why I'm talking so much, really. I don't normally. I shouldn't, even; I should go out, and join the others, in the garden."   
  
"Stay for a little while longer? Let's talk about Sirius," Hector encouraged, feeling as if he were baiting a skittish, wild animal, offering out food in a steady palm, trying to bring out its confidence. Remus did seem to be warming to him, though; Hector got the feeling the boy, almost a young man now, did not talk this way with anyone at all, save for perhaps Sirius, and it was comforting. Hector needed to know, for some unexplained reason, the extent to which this Remus Lupin could love. Already he knew the grander gestures of Sirius's heart; the smaller, more delicate ones, too. Already he knew the way Sirius felt, and wondered if he could guide the two towards each other in a way no one had ever done for him, and for-   
  
"All right," Remus acquiesced, "yes. Sirius. Let's talk about Sirius." Hector realized that Remus could probably talk about Sirius all day, if he were given the chance. That made Hector smile. "I don't know what to say other than that he's my best friend, and that his family hates me, and that my father knows he's the best thing in my life. Has Sirius told you everything? About us?"   
  
"Certain things," Hector said, and then, on impulse, knowing it might explain a good many things, "his family hates me, as well, you see."   
  
"Oh," Remus said, eyes alight with understanding, "oh. I had thought that was it. That _was_ why they hated me. Does Sirius know? He didn't, when I was visiting his family. He didn't even begin to understand the silence, when I came into a room."   
  
"He's beginning to understand," Hector said gravely, "yes. Which is why it's rather important to me that you don't ever let him face what he will have to alone. You won't, will you?" Remus bowed his head, and for a moment, seemed very small. For a moment, Hector worried. Then Remus lifted his head again and fixed his eyes on Hector's, something gold in them, something bright, and something so strong Hector found himself feeling weak-kneed. That such a small creature could possess such inner strength so well-masked seemed impossible to Hector: and Hector had seen things in his lifetime that most men would find much harder to believe.   
  
"I hope you never have to ask me that question again," Remus said soberly, "because I would do for him all that he would ask of me and all that he would not have the heart to ask of me, and all that he would not know he needed to ask of me." Hector drew in a shaky breath.   
  
"He is right," Hector said quietly, "to speak of you as he does."   
  
"Thank you," Remus murmured, "that means a lot to me."   
  
"We all live worrying we are not right or we are not enough or we are not - dare I say it? - worthy, but don't let that come in the way of mutual happiness, Remus. And I believe, we are both expected, in the garden, are we not?" Remus blinked.   
  
"Oh," he said, and stood hurriedly, "oh, yes, we are."   
  
"It's a very nice garden - after you - or so people say. Mundungus looks after it well. Are you a gardener, Remus?"   
  
"No," Remus said, a little sadly, "I have an apartment with my father; there's no garden, not even a little window box for flowers. Though, I think that's best. I'm not sure. It's a very gray place, though." Hector watched the small boy as he spoke, and found he could understand why Sirius was enchanted so but such a seemingly unnoticeable creature. There was a power to his words that was so fey and so bewitching that one forgot he was yet a child.   
  
"What I'd like to do for the rest of my life," Hector confided in him, "is let the world go to rot, and tend to a garden that was all my own. So long as I had a place to grow my flowers and my herbs, I'd be quite satisfied."   
  
"I think," Remus replied, "I know exactly what you mean." And, though Remus Lupin had never attempted gardening in all his life, he did.   
  
~*~   
  
_Dear Remus,   
  
It is strange that after so many years you are bringing up the subject of your mother. I had thought you would do so sooner than this and, when you did not, I had assumed that you would not bring her up at all. Perhaps I should have known you better. Perhaps, it was just wishful thinking; as Dalila is quite a topic to address, especially in such a form. I shall attempt to do so, of course, for your sake.   
  
Firstly, however, do give James Potter my deepest condolences. It is a terrible thing to lose a parent so young in life, and under such circumstances. I am sure that you and Sirius shall give him whatever strength you can, and I am sure that you know well enough to be patient. You cannot recover from such unexpected grief as you can recover from even the gravest of illnesses. It is, indeed, as I know you know, impossible. Some of us take longer than others to recuperate. Some of us simply do not recuperate at all. Death changes us. Be patient with him, though I know you, and I trust your good judgement, perhaps better than I do my own.   
  
On to speak of Dalila. My wife. Your mother. It is strange that I should speak of her now, write about her after so much time has passed. Either I shall make this very brief or perhaps inappropriately long, but either way, I apologize, for everything. Certain things I should have foreseen. Do not close your eyes to the truth of matters for the sake of love, Remus; in the end, that is little comfort, most especially when it has been lost.   
  
To tell you about her - to answer your questions - I must give some history of her, and of us. Forgive me that, and entertain the notion also that perhaps it is necessary for me, to tell someone. I can think of no one other than you that I trust deeply enough and respect so entirely, as to unburden myself of that cross I yet bear for her.   
  
We married very young. It is unwise to marry when you are very young. She looked just as you do now, though perhaps smaller, and her hair was always in a long braid. (It is impossible for me to imagine not remembering this. I think, I remember it far too well for health and good humor, and envy you, that it should not haunt you the same way as it does me.) And, indeed, you were with us before a year was passed. She loved you very deeply, I could see that much. From the moment you were in our lives it was only you she saw. She was more devoted and faithful a mother than she was a lover or a wife, and you were the center of her life. (I do not tell you this to ease your heart. I tell you because it is the truth, and I would bestow upon you no other legacy than that.)   
  
The full moon pattern became quite clear to me soon enough, though not soon enough to give me credit, and certainly not late enough for that, either. I had my suspicions. I was foolish, and I never asked, though I do not think she would speak to me of it, or tell me the truth of the matter, even if I had approached her. She was secretive, kept you in the embrace of all her secrets.   
  
If I had known earlier, Remus, I would not have let her take you. I did not think she would ever harm you, as she loved you so clearly. The moon made her mad. In answer to the question you told me I should not, indeed, answer: she did not wish to kill you. Nor, do I think, was she trying to, in the end. Perhaps, she wanted you as all her own. Perhaps - and this is a theory which, over time, I have come to accept - it cannot be rationalized, as she was nearly a beast, and then entirely one, and incapable of rational thinking, herself. She did not mean to kill you, Remus. She loved you too dearly to lose you.   
  
I have pictures of her still.   
  
Now, however, I feel as if I write too much, and so, for your sake - for your benefit, as I feel it would benefit you - I have enclosed a few of these pictures, and they are yours to keep, to remember her or, if you so will, to forget her by. It is best I do not keep them. The resemblance between you both is striking enough, without such tangible reminders. of it.   
  
Love,   
  
Etienne.   
  
PS: I would love some of the fudge, and perhaps, if we are feeling particularly daring, those Chocolate Frogs again for, though I do not much enjoy the idea of my food moving about in my mouth as I eat it, the chocolate was indeed very good. Besides, I should feel less of an old man chasing my food, I think, than I should if it were sitting docilely before me on my place. I love you, Remus._   
  
~*~   
  
Remus folded the letter and went back to the envelope. Frowning in thought and perhaps a nervous anticipation, he tapped out the three pictures that his father had sent along with the letter - which, of course, Remus had read twice, and now felt entirely too numb over. The pictures themselves were old, two of them black and white and one in full and glorious color. For a while, Remus looked at them, stared at them really, without even focusing on the shapes. He did not know if he could look her in the eye. He did not know what on earth he would do if he found the resemblance as great as his father told him it was. Of all fates the world and its mechanisms had to offer, Remus could not bear the one he saw all too clearly. Remus refused to be in any way like his mother.   
  
"What's that you have, Remus?" Sirius draped himself over the back of Remus's desk chair and Remus started a bit, eyes widening. "Oh, sorry," Sirius said quickly, sheepish, "didn't mean to startle you." His eyes darkened, worried, at how pale Remus was. "Oi, is everything all right? Nothing's wrong, is it? Has something happened?"   
  
"No," Remus replied, swallowing, trying to shove a lump of sadness down in his throat. "No, nothing's the matter. My father sent me pictures. Photographs - of my mother. That's all. He says I look just like her, so I can't look at them. Not yet. Do you want to?" Sirius side, and pulled up a chair close to Remus's side, flopping himself down into it. He rested an arm on Remus's shoulder and his chin on that arm, pausing to think.   
  
"I don't know," Sirius said, "how 'bout we look at the pictures together, or something? D'you want that?" Remus toyed with the hand Sirius rested on his thigh, and then he nodded.   
  
"All right. Yes, actually. Yes. Let's," he decided, face pained. He leaned forward a little, glad for the warmth of Sirius's breath at his neck, and picked the three photographs up, holding them so that both he and Sirius could see them.   
  
The first was a small black and white snapshot of a small girl with unruly hair. She wore boy's trousers and a sailor shirt. If it weren't for the smile to her lips, carefree and wild, Sirius would have mistaken her for Remus himself, when Remus was that age. Their eyes were exactly the same, large and round and depthless, possessing some greater knowledge to which the general populace of the world were not privy.   
  
"She looks like me," Remus said, very gravely, "doesn't she."   
  
"It's the eyes," Sirius agreed, nodding. "But she does. I mean, a lot. Your da's right." Remus swallowed.   
  
"The next one," he murmured hurriedly, "let's just look at the next." He set the first photograph face down on his desk, and held up the second.   
  
It was larger than the first, and the girl in the previous picture was captured here as a young woman. The smile and the eyes were the same. She looked to be about twenty, a laughing, vivid twenty, wanting colors, Sirius thought, not a grayscale. He licked his lips, and kissed Remus's cheek. Remus, however, was paying attention to the picture, studying the young woman's features. She had Remus's snub nose, the shape of his lips, his chin, and still his eyes, those dark, glorious eyes.   
  
"What does my father see," Remus asked himself, the words barely heard, "when he looks at me?" For a while, Sirius puzzled as to how he might best answer this question, and then he sighed, kissing Remus's cheek again. He found he was unable to tell Remus anything. He barely knew Etienne Ibert; and he certainly never knew Dalila Lupin. What advice could he give, what judgements could he make? "Do you think it's possible for him to see me?" Remus asked.   
  
"Of course," Sirius answered immediately. "Of course it's possible. Who else would he see? You're Remus. Besides," Sirius added, thoughtful, now, "there's something really different about the way her features _are_, in her face. I can't explain it more than that, but d'you know what I'm saying?"   
  
"I'm not sure," Remus admitted.   
  
"Well," Sirius said, trying, because he could sense this was rather important, "well, I don't know how to explain it, really. Just she smiles a lot differently than you do. You can see it. She smiles so other people will look at her, I think. You don't smile like that; you've never smiled like that. And her hair, too, it's longer and wilder. And she holds her head at an angle, to match with her smile." Sirius blinked. "Her smile's crooked. Your smile isn't." Remus had that half-smile. It wasn't _crooked_. It was lopsided. There was an incredible difference.   
  
Remus let out a sigh of relief.   
  
"Thank you, Sirius," he said, and kissed Sirius on the cheek in return. He set the second picture down with more ease than he had the first.   
  
The third was in color. It was that young woman, obviously a little older, and a young boy on her lap. The two of them were laughing.   
  
"My father took this picture," Remus said. "I remember this, I think."   
  
The boy and the mother looked more alike there than they did, picture to young man. Sirius had never seen such a carefree expression on Remus's face. Sirius could barely remember any time when Remus had looked so simply happy. It didn't look like Remus's face, this boy's, Sirius realized, in the same way Dalila's face did not look like Remus's: there was too little understanding of the world, and too much caprice, in the lines of those mouths.   
  
"You used to look like her," Sirius said, "a lot, but now, you don't, as much. Now you're different."   
  
"She really knew how to smile," Remus said helplessly, "didn't she. Look at that smile, it's wonderful."   
  
"I like yours better," Sirius answered truthfully, "I like yours much better. It seems like she gives hers away too freely. Yours are," Sirius struggled for the word, "well, they mean more, anyway." He touched Remus's cheek. "You okay, Remus? Are you all right?" Remus was simply looking at the third and last picture, holding it in a shaky hand, looking a little lost and a little more at a loss for words. Sirius watched him worriedly. "Oi, Moony, c'mon, answer me. You all right?"   
  
"What?" Remus blinked himself out of a reverie he should not have allowed himself to fall into, and then nodded, apologetically. "Yes. I'm fine. I didn't mean to worry you. No, I just - you're right. We used to look very much alike."   
  
"But you don't as much anymore," Sirius added, brow furrowing. "That's the answer to your question, I think. No, I know that's the answer to your question. I don't think your da sees her in you as much as you'd think. You're not really alike at all. Expressions make resemblance just as much as features do." Remus lowered his hand, and the photograph, to the desk.   
  
"Thank you, Sirius," he murmured.   
  
"You're welcome." Sirius kissed his cheek again. "Come on. Come have some lunch. And then James and I are going to play a little Quidditch, you know, one on one, 'cause it's probably the last chance we'll have to do that, before we're off for the summer. You in?"   
  
"Mm," Remus said. "I'll come along and watch. I've an essay to write, though, so don't keep me out for too long."   
  
"Oh, you wouldn't let us keep you out for too long and you know it," Sirius muttered, mussing Remus's hair. Remus laughed, very lightly, and Sirius cupped his face in both hands, kissing him on the lips. "It won't be the same if you're not there just for a little while," Sirius said, more sober as he pulled away just slightly, "and I'm starving, so let's go." Remus smiled half-sidedly at him, and nodded, tucking a stray lock of dark hair behind one of the bigger boy's ears.   
  
"Right," Remus said, "lunch. Definitely. Let me just put these away," he added, pointing to the pictures, "and I'll be right down, all right?"   
  
"Right," Sirius said, "I'll see you there. Don't keep me waiting. I can only be a gentleman for so long."   
  
"Mm," Remus returned, voice wry. "All of two seconds. Go on, start without me; but I'll be right down, so you needn't worry." Saluting, Sirius stood and was gone a few moments later, leaving Remus alone with the photographs. He gathered them up into a neat pile, not looking at them again - he didn't think he would be able to face her, without Sirius beside him, keeping him strong. Sliding all three of them back into the envelope, he took out his quill, and wrote a quite reply.   
  
_Papa -   
  
Merci. Je sais que tu as fait et je comprends que tu as veut maitnent. Je pense que je sais aussi qu'elle a veut.   
  
Elle n'a pas sourit comme moi.   
  
Elle avait tres belle.   
  
Toujours,   
  
Ton Remus_   
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
**TRANSLATIONS**   
  
  
  
Papa -   
  
Thank you. I know what you have done and I understand what you wanted now. I think that I know also what she wanted.   
  
She did not smile like I do.   
  
She was very beautiful.   
  
Always,   
  
Your Remus.   
  



End file.
